At 2:30 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, President Donald Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account announcing that the United States had joined Israel in launch attacks it’s Iran.
His next message, just two hours later, seemed to suggest that the attacks were, at least in part, motivated by a far-fetched claim that Iran helped rig the 2020 U.S. election. “Iran attempted to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces a resumption of war with the United States,” the president said. wrote on Truth Social.
The message linked to an article on Just the newsa pro-Trump conspiracy media outlet that has offered no explanation for its claims beyond the vague claim that Iran conducted “a sophisticated electoral influence effort” in 2020.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the alleged interference factored into the decision to attack Iran or what exactly the so-called interference was.
Trump has spent the years since 2020 strengthening many baseless conspiracy theories on the rigged 2020 elections. Since returning to the White House last year, he has authorized his administration to use these debunked conspiracy theories to inform decision-making, since searches at Fulton County election officesGeorgia, to legal proceedings unexpurgated electoral lists.
It’s unclear exactly what alleged Iranian interference Trump was referring to in his Truth Social article, but Patrick Byrne, a prominent conspiracy theorist who urged Trump to seize voting machines following the 2020 election, tells WIRED that this is linked to a broader conspiracy theory that also involves Venezuela and China.
Like most election-related conspiracy theories, this one is convoluted and not based on any concrete evidence. In general terms, the conspiracy theory, which appeared for the first time in the weeks and months following the 2020 election and have become more complex in the years since, allegations have emerged that the Venezuelan government rigged elections across the world for decades by creating the voting software company Smartmatic as a way to rig elections remotely. (Smartmatic has has repeatedly denied all allegations against it and successfully sued the right-wing newspaper Newsmax for promoting conspiracy theories and defaming the company.)
Byrne laid out the entire conspiracy theory in a 45-minute presentation published on X in 2024. His claims have been widely shared within the election denial community since its publication.
Iran’s role in all this, Byrne claims, was to hide the money trail. “They act as payers. They keep certain payments that would reveal this. [operation] “This is done through an Iranian-run transfer pricing mechanism in oil.”
When asked for evidence of Iran’s role in this conspiracy theory, Byrne did not respond. In fact, none of Byrne’s claims have ever been verified and most have been repeatedly refuted. Smartmatic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There have, however, been two documented cases of Iranian interference in elections: in 2021, the Department of Justice accused two Iranians for carrying out an influence operation aimed at targeting and threatening American voters. And in 2024, the three Iranian hackers working for the government were charge by compromising the Trump campaign as part of an effort to disrupt the 2024 election.
Byrne’s allegations, however, are entirely different. And while Byrne’s claims have circulated among online conspiracy groups for years, they were sent directly to Trump in recent months by Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who has known Trump since they attended the New York Military Academy together. Ticktin also represents a former Colorado elections official turned election denial superstar Tina Peters.
That email contained a 17-page draft executive order that Ticktin, Bryne and other election deniers have been working on for years. The order, which was rejected by legal experts, falsely claims Trump can declare an emergency based on foreign election interference and take control of US elections. THE Washington Post first reported last week that Ticktin was advocating for the White House to adopt the proposed executive order. While Trump told reporters that he is not aware of the draft decree, he recently shown that he might be willing to bypass Congress and issue an order allowing him to take control of the elections.
“There are a lot of people [within government] who are looking into this and advocating for the executive order to be signed, and that it should be an executive order that declares an emergency,” Ticktin told WIRED. He declined to identify the people involved.
While it remains unclear what role Trump believes Iran played in the 2020 election, he is much clearer about the role the country’s leaders played in the 2024 election.
“They tried twice,” Trump told ABC Sunday, referring to two alleged plots to target and possibly kill him during the 2024 election campaign that prosecutors say was backed by Iran. “I got him before he got me,” Trump added, referring to reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in the U.S. and Israeli attacks.
