The ‘whistleblower,’ United States postal worker Richard Hopkins (32), momentarily made headlines recently for all the wrong reasons.
What We Know:
- Hopkins declared in an affidavit that he witnessed a supervisor at the post office where he works, in Erie, Pennsylvania, instructing his fellow postal employees to change the dates on late-arriving presidential election ballots from November 4 and 5 and backdate them to November 3. This way, the ballots could be illegally counted as official mail-in ballots in the state of Pennsylvania. He later said the information he gave was not true.
- On Friday, November 6, 2020, Project Veritas reported Richard Hopkins’ allegations that he overheard a supervisor telling employees to backdate ballots. Project veritas is an organization with a right-wing agenda and a reputation for delivering false stories and conspiracy theories.
- On November 7, the Erie postmaster, Rob Weisenbach, stated via Facebook that the allegations were completely false. He also said the employee making the allegations had been disciplined at work several times recently.
- The US House Oversight Committee launched a full investigation and posted on their official Twitter page yesterday evening that Richard Hopkins admitted to giving false testimony in the affidavit he originally submitted. He originally stated he could attest to voter tampering and mail fraud in the presidential election.
- The Oversight Committee immediately launched a full investigation. They also stated via Twitter that they met with the postal inspectors who now have a new affidavit from Hopkins stating the allegations reported Friday by Project Veritas were an outright, baseless lie.
- Then, Monday, November 9, said ‘whistleblower’ recanted the entire story and signed a new affidavit stated he lied about the whole story without offering any logical explanation as to why he chose to make up the story. That same day, he was escorted off the job until the investigation is completed.
- According to the Washington Post, Hopkins set up a GoFundMe page over the weekend that raised over $136,000 before spokesperson Bobby Whithorne issued a statement saying GoFundMe removed the fundraising page on November 10 without dispersing and/or giving Hopkins access to the funds.
Richard Hopkins is still on leave from work, pending the outcome of the US Postal Service internal investigation. This is a developing story. We will update the story as more information is available.
