Quick summary: 

• This is just a photo of a sheet of paper of unknown origin. No docket number, no source, no legal filing, nothing. Do you really want to trust it?
• There is no such thing as a “Fucino Tower” in Italy. A “Fucino” satellite communications facility exists, but it has no towers. There is no building there known as “Fucino Tower”. Satellite communication stations are not radio towers. Never have been. They look like big dishes. They look like Arecibo, Jodrell Bank, Goldstone, Parkes. See for yourselves.
  
• People with the names mentioned in the “affidavit” actually do exist in Italy, but that does not imply or prove that they committed electoral fraud in the US. You exist, your name is available online: if somebody used it in a made-up allegation, would that prove you’re guilty? Exactly.
• An edited video of the alleged lawyer appears to be merely reporting that a person made a sworn statement before him; it is not evidence and it is not an endorsement by the lawyer.
• The person who allegedly made the statement is a convicted criminal. Do you really want to trust the unsubstantiated words of a criminal?
  
• Also, do you really want to claim that one IT guy in Italy was able to hack the voting system of your entire country? What are you, a bunch of amateurs? Do you realize how ridiculous this whole story sounds?
• Please note that this article has been and will be rewritten extensively to include new information as it becomes available.

This started as a quick post/tweet that I wrote initially as a reply to General Michael T. Flynn’s tweet claiming that Italy stole the US elections, and it has since expanded considerably. Here’s Flynn’s tweet (subsequently deleted by Twitter’s removal of his account:

“We must stand up for truth and call for a full investigation”

Another piece of the foreign interference puzzle. The viability of our constitution & our country are at risk.

Italy did it - Arturo D'Elia Admits to stealing election onhttps://t.co/DKGSVVqNvx via @YouTube

— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) January 7, 2021

This claim is essentially based on this photograph of an alleged “affidavit” provided by a Prof. Alfio D’Urso, “Advocate/Lawyer” in Catania, Italy. The affidavit states (without evidence) that an Italian IT guy named Arturo D’Elia claims (again without evidence) that he switched US election data “from significant margin of victory for Donald Trump to Joe Biden” by using “military grade cyber warfare encryption capabilities to transmit switched votes via military satellite of Fucino Tower to Frankfurt Germany”:

Transcript of the affidavit

GENERAL AFFIDAVIT

Region of Lazio

Country of Italy

I, Prof Alfio D’Urso, Advocate/Lawyer, of Via Vittorio Emanuele, Catania, 95131 Italy, do hearby provide the following affidavit of facts as conveyed in several meetings with a high level army security services official:

Arturo D’Elia, former head of the IT Department of Leonardo SpA, has been charged by the public prosecutor of Naples for technology/data manipulation and implantation of viruses in the main computers of Leonardo SpA in December 2020. D’Elia has been deposed by the presiding judge in Naples and in sworn testimony states on 4 November 2020, under instruction and direction of US persons working from the US Embassy in Rome, undertook the operation to switch data from the US elections of 3 November 2020 from significant margin of victory from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in a number of states where Joe Biden was losing the vote totals. Defendant stated he was working in the Pescara facility of Leonardo SpA and utilized military grade cyber warfare encryption capabilities to transmit switched votes via military satellite of Fucino Tower to Frankfurt Germany. The defendant swears that the data in some cases may have been switched to represent more than total voters registered. The defendant has stated he is willing to testify to all individuals and entities involved in the switching of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden when he shall be in total protection for himself and his family. Defendant states he has secured in an undisclosed location the backup of the original data and data switched upon instruction to provide evidence at court in this matter.

I hereby declare and swear the above stated facts have been stated in my presence.

DATED this 6th day of January 2021 at Rome, Italy.

[Signature]

General Affidavit

Information on Mr Alfio D’Urso (the lawyer)

There actually is a lawyer named Alfio D’Urso whose office address is in Via Vittorio Emanuele 5, in the city of Catania, Italy (source; source). Note that the office street number is missing from the “affidavit”. That’s a bizarre mistake for a lawyer in such an important legal document. Lawyer D’Urso’s details can be found by entering his surname (without the initial D) in this registry of Italian lawyers. 

A photograph of D’Urso can be found on the website of the University of Catanzaro, where he is listed as a professor (permanent copy):

In the video, which has an unexplained edit at 40 seconds from the start, Alfio D’Urso is presented as Legal Counsel / Supreme Court of Italy - Italian Tax Court / EU Banking Credit Foundation. If anyone can verify these credentials, please write to me or write in the comments below.

It’s the slightly underwhelming front door opposite the van.

A closeup, from another angle, of the plaque, which says “Studio legale D’Urso”.

Information on Mr Arturo D’Elia (the IT person and alleged hacker)

A man named Arturo D’Elia does exist, and he actually did work for Leonardo SpA. He was arrested on or around December 5, 2020 for stealing military project data in Italy in 2015-2017 (Reuters via Swissinfo). Of course, that in no way proves that he hacked the US elections.

Mr Alfio D’Urso is not Mr D’Elia’s lawyer, according to Mr D’Elia’s actual lawyer, Mr Nicola Naponiello, as reported by Open.online.

Based on the new data (in particular on the video), the explanation that currently best fits the facts is that lawyer Alfio D’Urso actually did draft the affidavit and actually did receive the statements it contains from Arturo D’Elia. If so, the lawyer would simply have certified that Arturo D’Elia made the statements before him; he would not be authenticating them or endorsing them in any way. He would be simply notarizing the statements made. In other words, the affidavit is not evidence of the authenticity of the claims made by D’Elia: it simply certifies that he made them in front of a witness.

I checked with a legal expert, and the situation is that a lawyer may certify that any statement was made before him by his client, whether with the intent of public disclosure or for legal proceedings (unless the lawyer knows for a fact that the statement is materially impossible, such as “I was born on the 30th of February”, in which case he might refuse to take the statement). The lawyer certifies that the statement was actually made; he does not certify its truthfulness. 

For example, if I go to a lawyer as his client and ask him to draft an affidavit in which he certifies that I have stated before him that I hacked the Pentagon with my super-secret computer given to me by aliens from the planet Gallifrey, the lawyer may think I’m nuts, but he is required to certify that statement and write the affidavit, which I can then publish. The affidavit, however, does not confirm that what I said is true: it merely certifies that I said it.

There’s also the matter of the term “Defendant” in the affidavit: it makes no sense, since there are no legal proceedings on the matters stated and therefore D’Elia is not a defendant.

It should also be noted that if D’Elia actually made these statements, he may have excellent reasons to make up this whole story: he is currently accused of a very important crime he committed years ago and therefore it would be very convenient for him to claim that he’s a super-witness in a high-profile international case. He might just be making it up because he’s a mythomaniac (i.e., he makes up stuff all the time). This would certainly not be the first case of a criminal concocting tall tales for his own benefit.

Other discrepancies and side notes

There are also many other inconsistencies in the claims made in the affidavit, such as the operations of the Dominion voting machines (which leave an unhackable paper trail). These details are available in Italian at Open.online.

Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who is mentioned in the video linked by Mike Flynn as a co-conspirator (without evidence), has objected to the allegations, saying that he will seek legal remedy (ANSA).

----

For the record, this is the (slightly edited and updated) reply I tweeted to General Flynn before many of the details described above became available:

Hello sir, I'm Italian. To put it briefly and in the most technically accurate words I can find, this is the finest grade of bullshit.

It's a photograph of unknown origin, of a document written on plain paper (whereas all Italian legal documents are on legal paper and stamped a million times or at least on letterhead). If you believe *that* at face value, may I interest you in the Trevi Fountain? Fine specimen, one careful owner: the guy on the right.

 

[In case you don’t catch the reference: the guy is Italian comedian Totò, in a classic Italian comedy movie called Totò truffa ‘62. In the movie he is a con man who sells the world-famous Trevi Fountain, in Rome, to a highly gullible tourist]

The "affidavit" mentions a "military satellite of Fucino Tower", which is not a thing that exists (neither the satellite, nor the tower).

Also, that's not how US votes are counted. The tallies do not go through Germany.

As an Italian, the idea that some IT guy in Italy hacked the *entire* US voting system, and did so under the NSA's nose, is simply *hilarious*.

Italians are rolling on the floor laughing at this tale. Ah, yes, the ever gullible Americans. Do you read Italian? Have at it: there's even a LITERAL FLAT-EARTHER site involved in this. 

The video you linked claims that Mr Matteo Renzi was involved in this amazing operation. Just so you know, THIS is Mr Renzi. The alleged mastermind:

SHOK pic.twitter.com/GDflYiHylo

— Trash Italiano (@trash_italiano) January 7, 2021

Sir, if you seriously believe that the US election system can be hacked in Germany by an Italian techie from a place that doesn't exist, in a plot orchestrated by a guy who can't even pronounce "because", then it clearly doesn't take much to be a general in the US.

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