On November 3, 2025—the five-year mark of the 2020 election—the Michigan prosecution of attorneys Matt DePerno and Stephanie Lambert took a troubling turn.
The Oakland County Circuit Court order, People of the State of Michigan v. Stefanie Lambert (Case No. 2023-285759-FH), leaves no question where the balance tilts.
Judge Jeffrey Matis denied every defense request—fifteen in all—and granted the prosecution’s positions in full.
Key Excerpts from the Court’s Order
“The request to modify the instructions regarding Count 24 is DENIED.”
“The request to modify the Court’s prior rulings … is DENIED.”
“The special non-standard instruction captioned Unauthorized Possession of a Voting Machine shall be modified as follows:
The defendant is charged with the crime of unauthorized possession of a voting machine. To prove this charge, the prosecutor must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. The defendant intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly obtained or had possession of
2. A ballot box or voting machine
3. Without authorization by the Secretary of State or valid court order.”
That third element—the “authorization by the Secretary of State” requirement—has never appeared in Michigan’s election-law statutes. By inserting it into the official jury instruction, the court has effectively created a new legal requirement after the fact.
The order also denies the defense’s proposed instructions on lawful authority, investigative intent, and definitions vital to the defense theory; rejects all four sections of Lambert’s Supplemental and Revised Requested Jury Instructions (“Law,” “Lawful Instruction,” and “Private Investigator”); and refuses reconsideration based on People v. Holkeboer (2024). Even Lambert’s request for clarification of the definition of “voting machine” was denied.
Finally, the court imposed a strict exhibit deadline: “Defendant shall produce trial exhibits on or before December 3, 2025. Exhibits not provided by this date and time may be excluded at trial.”
The trial is set for Monday, March 2, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. in person. Defense counsel warns that the combination of denials and deadlines pre-loads the case in favor of the prosecution.
A Law That Never Existed
The centerpiece of this dispute is simple: no statute in 2020—or now—required “authorization from the Secretary of State” before examining election equipment pursuant to a court-ordered discovery.
In the Antrim County litigation, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was the opposing party. Requiring her permission to obtain discovery evidence would have been absurd; she was actively fighting to suppress the very records the plaintiffs sought to examine.
A December 20, 2020, email in the case file confirms that no such authorization rule existed. The state’s later attempts to reinterpret procedures only arose after the Antrim forensic findings became public.
The Evidence They Want Buried
Attorneys Stephanie Lambert and Matt DePerno, representing Bill Bailey, filed sworn expert affidavits by Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR/CyTech, documenting severe vulnerabilities and irregularities in Antrim County’s 2020 election systems.
These reports—filed under oath in court—detailed illegal international communications, active network configurations, and unauthorized remote logons to the Antrim Election Management System on key dates.
• April 8, 2021 Affidavit: revealed that the Dominion ICX device was configured for active network communication and had connected to foreign IP addresses, including one resolving to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.
• June 8, 2021 Affidavit: recorded two successful “Anonymous Logon” events—on November 5 and November 17, 2020—and catalogued outdated software, shared passwords, and unencrypted drives that made unauthorized access inevitable.
These reports were lawfully filed on the public docket, under oath, during litigation. There was no hacking, no theft—just discovery.
From Public Docket to Prosecutorial Crosshairs
After those filings, the experts and their work became targets—catalogued in the federal “Arctic Frost” materials, where the government flagged the very professionals who performed and documented this analysis.
The cover and index materials reflect that CyFIR/CyTech and the Antrim forensic series (including the Cotton affidavits) were among the workstreams singled out.
Nothing about the Antrim filings was clandestine. Lawyers litigated. Experts examined. Affidavits were sworn. Documents were filed. That is lawful advocacy.
The New “SOS Permission” Theory Isn’t in the Law
Monday’s jury-instruction twist attempts to retrofit a permission regime that never existed. The new instruction suggests that examination or analysis of voting equipment required prior approval from the Secretary of State.
But no statute imposed that requirement, and the Secretary of State was the adverse party in the civil action—directly opposing the very discovery that revealed these problems.
Recasting routine litigation steps as criminal because attorneys lacked “permission” from their opponent is an inversion of due process and the adversarial system. The contemporaneous correspondence and court record contain no directive that such SOS authorization was required.
What the Record Shows — In Plain Terms
1. International connections and active networking: Cotton’s April 2021 affidavit documents foreign IP artifacts and network configurations on voting equipment—evidence of external connectivity that contradicts claims of isolation.
2. Anonymous remote logons on key dates: Cotton’s June 2021 affidavit shows two successful “Anonymous Logon” events on November 5 and November 17, 2020, during the tabulation period.
3. Systemic security weaknesses: Shared passwords, null admin accounts, unencrypted disks, and obsolete antivirus definitions created wide-open attack surfaces.
4. No contemporaneous SOS-permission rule: The documentary record, including the Dec. 20, 2020 email, confirms there was no such requirement and that the Secretary of State had no authority to impose one.
5. Targeting of experts post-filing: The Arctic Frost materials flag CyFIR/CyTech and the Antrim forensic reports as “targets,” showing how courtroom evidence became grounds for retaliation.
Why This Matters
If a court can add new elements by jury instruction years later—especially one requiring “permission” from a political adversary—then any politically sensitive litigation can be criminalized after the fact.
That chills advocacy, silences experts, and warns future litigants to keep inconvenient evidence off the docket.
DePerno and Lambert did what attorneys are obligated to do: they brought technical evidence to a court. Their experts swore to what they found. If the State disputes the substance, the remedy is cross-examination—not retroactive lawmaking.
To join the fight against this weaponization, please visit American Rights Alliance and make a donation. https://www.americanrightsalliance.org/
The post On the Five-Year Anniversary of 2020 Election, Michigan Court Moves the Goalposts on the Attorneys Who Exposed Antrim County’s Machines appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.