Jurors in Denver heard testimony on Thursday from the man whose uncorroborated allegations of 2020 election rigging spawned a series of defamation lawsuits against conservative political figures who publicly repeated that narrative.

Podcaster and businessman Joe Oltmann admitted in federal court that he misled a judge about his inability to sit for questioning, declined to reveal the identities of those who facilitated his alleged discovery of election manipulation, and accused unnamed individuals of having “wiped” relevant information from the Internet.

“You certainly started to get a lot more viewers after you started talking about Eric Coomer (on your podcast), didn’t you?” asked attorney Brad Kloewer.

“We had more listeners, yes,” responded Oltmann.

The sometimes-tense examination, marked by frequent bench conferences called by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang, was not only a crucial component of the defamation trial against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, but the core of numerous defamation suits Coomer is pursuing. The defendants include Oltmann, media figures, President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign and Trump’s lawyers who amplified Oltmann’s unproven accusations.

Coomer, the former director of product strategy and security for voting technology supplier Dominion Voting Systems, has alleged the same basic sequence of events in each case.

Days after the 2020 presidential election, Oltmann claimed on his podcast he had recently listened in on an “antifa” conference call — a reference to anti-fascist ideology.

On the call, an unnamed participant referenced “Eric … the Dominion guy.” Oltmann alleged “Eric” said, “Don’t worry about the election, Trump is not gonna win. I made f-ing sure of that.”

Oltmann then conducted his own “investigation” by Googling the terms “Eric,” “Dominion,” and “Colorado.” Based on limited other information found online, he concluded Coomer was the one who allegedly made the comments of election rigging. Oltmann repeated his story publicly, even after the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Coomer alleged receiving credible death threats and that he was forced to hide for fear of his safety as a result of the story. Lindell, a supporter of Trump’s, accused Coomer of treason based on the unfounded accusations and, through his business entity, promoted Oltmann’s claims by giving him a platform at a 2021 “Cyber Symposium” in South Dakota.

On the witness stand, Oltmann was asked to explain several aspects of the alleged antifa conference call. He noted there were at times 19 participants on the video call, but he testified that he only ever saw one person’s face briefly.

“So, just one person on this whole video conferencing call was briefly visible for one moment. That’s your testimony?” asked Kloewer.

Oltmann was also confronted with a set of handwritten notes about the call, which included some people’s first names, cryptic phrases and no details about some portions of the Coomer story.

“That’s not how you write notes, Brad. You don’t write notes that way,” Oltmann responded after Kloewer asked about the absence of certain pieces of the alleged call.

Oltmann testified that he believed Coomer was the person on the alleged conference call because he was able to “match” the voice to other videos of Coomer. He acknowledged that any of the other people on the call could corroborate his story, and that he is “still five years later looking under every hood” to get more information about that call.

However, Kloewer read back portions of Oltmann’s deposition in which he said he spent no time trying to identify the other participants.

Oltmann also suggested the existence of another conspiracy because “all of the videos on the Internet from everything Eric Coomer, five days after the election, were gone. Which can only happen if you have some sort of government agency that can literally climb in and make things disappear.”

Jurors viewed multiple clips from Oltmann’s podcast, including one in which he claimed he had people “who are literally following him (Coomer) around.” At one point, Oltmann’s former cohost, Max McGuire, warned Coomer against making inflammatory comments, but Oltmann brushed his admonition aside.

Oltmann did, however, acknowledge under oath he falsely told a state judge he should not have to sit for a deposition because of COVID-19 concerns, when in reality he was traveling to Lindell’s Cyber Symposium to repeat his unproven allegations onstage.

Earlier in the day, jurors saw video depositions of Tina Peters, the Republican former Mesa County clerk who is currently serving a prison sentence for her role in a security breach of her office’s voting equipment. In the first deposition, taken in November 2022 shortly after her arraignment, Coomer’s attorney asked several questions about her relationship with Lindell, the Cyber Symposium and her contacts with Oltmann. 

Peters was also asked basic questions about her experience and job as clerk, but her attorney, Republican former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, answered for her each time that he was advising Peters to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

In the second video deposition one year later, Peters spoke more freely, including about her appearance on Lindell’s TV network where she repeated the Oltmann story.

“Have you seen anything, any evidence, that makes you confident that Eric Coomer rigged the 2020 presidential election?” asked Kloewer.

“I haven’t seen any, no,” responded Peters.

“And the reason you don’t know what Eric Coomer has and hasn’t done is because you haven’t conducted an investigation?” pressed Kloewer.

“Why would I?” said Peters.

The two-week trial continues on Friday. The defense has not yet presented its case, but Lindell and his companies have denied defaming Coomer because, among other things, they did not exhibit reckless disregard for the truth.

The case is Coomer v. Lindell et al.