Veritas Investigation Leads NH Attorney General To Admit ‘We Need To Do Better’

[Concord, N.H--Sept. 7, 2020] The New Hampshire Attorney General (AG), Gordon MacDonald, admitted to Project Veritas he is restructuring how the state’s Justice Department handles voter fraud cases after Veritas CEO and founder James O’Keefe called out a failure to act on the voter fraud case against Vincent Marzello.

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“James, we need to do better. We do,” admitted MacDonald, who was appointed the state’s attorney general by Gov. Christopher T. Sununu in 2017. “When something like this happens, it's really important to assess how we can do better.”

MacDonald spoke to O’Keefe last Friday, two days after O’Keefe met with Deputy Attorney General Jane Young, Associate Attorney General James Boffetti and Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Chong Yen in the New Hampshire Justice Department.

MacDonald Compelled to Share Four Reforms with Veritas

MacDonald told O’Keefe he plans to apply specific reforms—and he responded to O’Keefe’s questions about how the Marzello case could sit for eight months—an investigation punctuated with, according to Marzello, his own admission to a police officer that he voted twice.

“The way I'm answering your question, James is we need to do better and we got a plan in place to do better,” MacDonald said.

“We've been discussing that internally, and I'd be happy to share with you what, what we are going to be instituting going forward to ensure that we are more timely with these very, very important case,” he said.

MacDonald said he was changing the way cases were entered into the case management system to ensure staffers can more effectively track their progress.

The second reform is changing the structure of how MacDonald’s staff deals with voter fraud cases—specifically, Boffetti, who as the associate attorney general is also the director of the Division of Legal Counsel, will take a more active role overseeing the Election Law unit, the attorney general said.

“Boffetti will meet at least weekly with the election law unit to ensure that the cases are progressing adequately and very importantly, to identify when and in what cases we're going to need additional resources to ensure that they move along on a timely basis,” MacDonald said.

Another reform being MacDonald pledges to meet with Young monthly, he said. “Next, I and the deputy, we'll be meeting at least on a monthly basis and going through on a case by case by case basis all the matters in the election law unit,” he said.

MacDonald said to O’Keefe his fourth reform addresses the outstanding cases.

“We have completed a review of all of our pending election fraud, voting fraud cases and we we've just completed that today. I'm confident that we've got the appropriate staffing on those and we'll be able to move forward with those on a timely basis,” he said.

Top State Election Official Unaware State Issues Voter Identification Cards

“I appreciated the opportunity to sit with the deputy attorney general and the others to present what we found on our own—but, it was galling to hear Chong Yen, who leads the election law enforcement office, tell me that there is no such thing as a Voter ID card in New Hampshire,” he said.

Project Veritas presented Young, Boffett and Chong Yen the results of their own investigation two days prior, including Marzello’s admission he voted in the same election as himself and as a character he invented, Helen Elisabeth Ashley. Marzello’s efforts to secure the Voter ID for his Ashley character that triggered his investigation and that fraudulent Voter ID was part of the case file.

“If Chong Yen, the top voter and election fraud enforcement officer in the state, does not know about the Voter ID card, I have to question why Chong Yen is still in his position. He looked right at me and said he was ‘unaware of a Voter ID Card in New Hampshire,’ when the Voter ID card for fake voter ‘Helen Ashley’ was in the case file that given to him,” said O'Keefe.

Young credits O’Keefe, Project Veritas for prompting Marzello’s arrest

“All three saw the Project Veritas Marzello video and acknowledged that their own investigation had been ongoing for eight months—going back to December,” he said. “When we left the meeting, they told us there would be no arrest until their investigation was complete.”

The next day, Marzello was arrested on MacDonald’s order.

Young told the New Hampshire Union Leader O’Keefe was the reason for Thursday arrest:

“Without the involvement of Project Veritas, would we have brought the case today? Likely not. We have a couple more voter cases and in the run up to the presidential election, we are giving them to more than just the one attorney we have in the election law unit,” Young said.

“We are reallocating; we recognize when these come in, we should do them quicker; we will do better.”