Just One or Two Cases??!!

July 20, 2020 (Raleigh) In light of last week’s stunning announcement that Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman has dropped their investigation of Congressman-elect(ed) Mark Harris, we thought the other investigation to drop would have acquitted McCrae Dowless, the designated bad guy in this saga.

To understand why, let’s visit the Wayback Machine.

On March 26, 2019, possibly angling to keep her $110,000 a year job as Executive Director of the NC State Board of Elections (NCSBE), Kim Strach sold the Mark Harris / McCrae Dowless “voter fraud” investigation to a Davidson College audience and accidentally admitted, “we did not find ballots that were harvested,” and there were only “one or two cases” where harvested ballots “potentially” were collected and then not turned in.

Think about that: Did Mark Harris really get publicly humiliated out of his duly elected office over “possibly” one or two ballots?

To recap, Harris won his 2018 congressional election by just under 2,000 votes but was tainted by allegations that his employee, McCrae Dowless, had committed voter fraud. Harris endured a mini-stroke between his election and the February 2019 evidentiary hearing and later told VIP the meds had “fogged my mind.”

Their apparent strategy was to maneuver Harris into a perjury trap. First, Strach allowed two highly impeachable witnesses to make allegations against Dowless, who could not cross-examine his accusers. Next, Perkins-Coie attorney Mark Elias.suggested Harris “knew” Dowless was “harvesting ballots.” Seeking to clear his name, Harris agreed to testify under oath.

The trap was set. Harris tried to distance himself from Dowless and eventually flubbed a process question. At once, Elias asked for a recess. Then, in a backroom, Harris was given an ultimatum: Resign his congressional seat or face jail time for perjury.

Exhausted and dejected, Harris resigned.

But killing off Harris depended on the public believing that “ballot harvesting” was illegal in NC and that lie isn’t holding. First, an NCSBE email during the special election for Harris’ replacement, revealed that ballot harvesting was legal in North Carolina and they tried to claw it back.

One dangerous question in the entire ordeal always nagged at us: Who rigged this coup?

Former NCSBE vice-chairman & UNC-P Chief Legal Counsel, Josh Malcolm

Only three media organizations realized Harris–and his voters–had been scammed. But one of them, a WBTV investigative team led by Nick Ochsner, had enough muscle to go after the evidence of a coordinated attack against Harris and Dowless.

Trouble brewed when UNC-Pembroke denied Ochsner’s public-record request for email and text messages on government equipment. NCSBE vice-chairman Josh Malcolm allegedly conducted political business while employed at UNC-Pembroke. Even after Malcolm abruptly resigned, UNC-P kept fighting WBTV’s record request.

Last week, Ochsner reported that Malcolm had regularly texted with Harris’ congressional opponent Dan McCready throughout the contest. Big media ignored that bombshell and instead focused on Harris being cleared.

Questions Linger

Why is UNC-Pembroke still resisting WBTV’s public-record request? Who helped Malcolm and Elias unseat an elected Congressman? For that matter, after getting fired at NCSBE, how did Strach quickly land a $15,000 a month political gig at UNC?

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