A federal grand jury indicted executives of the voting machine company Smartmatic, along with the Philippines’ former top elections official, Thursday for participating in an “alleged bribery and money laundering scheme.” Smartmatic is currently suing conservative media outlets over their 2020 election reporting.
Roger Piñate and Jorge Vasquez are accused of taking part in a scheme that involved laundering money and paying $1 million in bribes to Juan Andres Bautista, former chair of the Philippines Commission on Elections, from 2015 to 2018, according to a Department of Justice press release.
The “co-conspirators” allegedly bribed Bautista to “obtain and retain business related to providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 Philippine elections and to secure payments on the contracts,” according to the release. They allegedly…
