Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/90

90 I don't know if it was in the room itself or perhaps on the ride back, but Acting AG Rosen told me: Just run this guy's name and see if he shows up anywhere. Let's find out if we know anything about this guy. Because his name is not even on those letters, you'll notice. The signature block for the letters is a totally different name.

Right.

So this whole thing was very confusing. But you'll see in the left there, I have: J. Demers, D-e-m-e-r-s, working on this, 12/29/20. So what we did was, when we got back to the Department, I called John Demers, who was the AAG for the National Security Division, and I said: John, can you just run this name and see if there's anything that we know about such an individual?

I think I asked the FBI to do the same. On my own, I googled the name and Leonardo, and I learned that, first, the name was misspelled. It should be D-'-E-l-i-a, but that there was some Italian press releases relating to the arrest of Mr. D'Elia in Italy, I believe, in December for a criminal conduct that related to a scheme under which he purportedly exfiltrated data from his company, Leonardo. And this was criminal conduct that, according to the public reporting, had gone on between 2015 to 2017. So it appeared to me that this individual was actually in custody in Italy facing criminal charges.

Which further cast doubt on his credibility with respect to these voting machines and interference in the election?

Yes, it appeared that this was someone who was in a difficult situation in Italy, and perhaps he or someone working on his behalf were trying to help him out of that situation.

Yeah. Any further effort to investigate it, or did it stop at that point when you found out that information about the purported source?