The 2020 US Presidential Election Was Stolen
Roger Stone and a number of closely associated figures claim that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. That claim was rejected by more than 60 courts, by Trump's own Attorney General, and by the federal cybersecurity agency. Stone was convicted in 2019 on seven criminal counts of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice.
What we know
Political operative Roger Stone has promoted claims that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen through widespread fraud, including through his "Stop the Steal" branding and organizing efforts, claims that were subsequently reviewed and rejected by courts, state election officials from both parties, and the Trump administration's own Department of Justice and cybersecurity agency.
More than 60 lawsuits alleging election fraud or seeking to overturn the 2020 results were filed in state and federal courts following the election. The large majority were dismissed for lack of evidence, and in cases that did proceed to a hearing on the merits, judges, including many appointed by Republican presidents and one by Trump himself, found no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the outcome in any state. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, then led by Trump-appointed official Christopher Krebs, and the Department of Justice under Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr, both concluded there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome of the election.
Stone's "Stop the Steal" organizing predates the actual 2020 election; he used similar branding and messaging during the 2016 Republican primary and again ahead of the 2020 election itself, describing plans to declare victory regardless of the actual vote count, a pattern documented by journalists covering his public statements and organizing activities in real time. This timeline undercuts the claim that the fraud allegations arose organically from evidence discovered after the vote; the messaging infrastructure existed before votes were even counted.
State-level audits and recounts in contested states, including a hand recount in Georgia and a partisan-commissioned audit in Arizona's Maricopa County that was conducted by a firm sympathetic to fraud claims, both confirmed Biden's win in those states rather than finding evidence of the fraud alleged. Stone was later convicted on charges related to obstruction and witness tampering connected to the Mueller investigation into 2016 election interference, though his sentence was commuted and he was later pardoned by Trump, a separate legal matter from the 2020 election fraud claims but relevant to assessing his documented history with legal proceedings around elections.
The bipartisan and cross-institutional nature of the finding, spanning Republican-appointed judges, a Republican administration's own DOJ and cybersecurity leadership, and state election officials of both parties, distinguishes the 2020 fraud rejection from a partisan dispute; it reflects a consistent evidentiary finding across independent institutions with no shared incentive to reach the same false conclusion.
Specific fraud allegations Stone and allies promoted, including claims about Dominion voting machines switching votes and dead people casting ballots in Michigan and Georgia, were each individually investigated by state election officials, and in the Dominion case, became the subject of a defamation lawsuit against Fox News that the network settled for $787.5 million in 2023 after internal Fox communications revealed that network executives and hosts privately doubted the fraud claims they were broadcasting to their audience.
Common claims
- The 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.False - rejected by 60+ courts
- Trump's own Attorney General found evidence of fraud.False - Barr publicly stated the opposite
- Roger Stone was convicted of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice.Supported
Evidence hierarchy
All sources
- Roger Stone: Trump ally, political strategist, Nixon fan and Russia probe defendantBBC · 2020
- Roger Stone Found GuiltyNPR · 2019
- Trump Commutes Sentence of Roger StoneNew York Times · 2020
- Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential ElectionU.S. Department of Justice, Special Counsel's Office · 2019
- Confidence in U.S. election integrityBrennan Center for Justice · 2024