A big business cropped up to help former President Donald Trump try to validate his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, according to someone who was there to profit from it.
Software engineer Ken Block told Business Insider ahead of the release of his forthcoming book “Disproven,” that he was paid about $750,000 to conduct research that would verify the existence of mass voter fraud in swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Despite the massive payday, Block couldn’t find any. He even disproved some of the claims of voter fraud within minutes, pointing to incomplete data that was wrongfully interpreted as fraudulent, that voters with the same name had been counted as duplicate votes, and that data for mail-in ballots had been wrongly flagged.
While Block said he wasn’t pressured to misrepresent his findings, Trump’s team didn’t want to hear it when he brought them news the fraud couldn’t be substantiated.
In one instance, Block confirmed that he proved one of the claims behind a Trump team lawsuit in Pennsylvania was wrong, which immediately ended the conference call he was on.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
All told, Block found fewer than 200 duplicate mail-in ballot votes had been fraudulently cast from all of the swing states combined, he wrote in a recent op-ed recounting his experience in AZ Central.
“Former President Trump has turned losing with grace into losing with disgrace,” Block writes in his book. “He has spawned a group of losing candidates who would rather howl about voter fraud—without justification— than display the leadership qualities demanded by the positions for which they ran.”
He continued: “Some of these failed candidates who make meritless accusations of voter fraud don’t seem to understand their own claims. Others spurn factual accuracy. For these folks, the end goal has nothing to do with winning an election. It is about raising money or profile—or worse, about undermining our republic.”
Trump has since been indicted in Georgia in connection to his efforts to overturn election results in the state.
“Disproven” will be released Tuesday.
