The Fixer
The Fixer
Tiffany Dover, Maricopa County ballot report, Pentagon-Ukraine leak, Nima Momeni
Rounding the Earth
The following article serves as the show notes for the video presentation of the same name released through the Rounding the News series, presented by Rounding the Earth. It is provided to allow RTE listeners to verify my sources and conduct their own due diligence, and is intended as a supplement to the video. As such, I highly encourage readers of this Substack to watch the full episode and support Rounding the Earth, whose founder Mathew Crawford has provided me the platform and resources to conduct this important work. Thank you, Rounding the Earth!
Nurse Tiffany Dover reappears
After over two years of silence, a Tennessee nurse named Tiffany Dover appears to have stepped back into the public eye. But instead of settling debate around her story, her reappearance seems to have only muddied the water further.
Dover was one of the first people to receive a COVID-19 genetic vaccine on live TV way back on December 17, 2020. As reported by USA Today six days after the incident:1
Last week, Tiffany Dover — a nurse manager from Catholic Health Initiatives Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee — fainted shortly after she received the COVID-19 vaccine shot. She was midway through a television interview when she passed out.
Clips of the moment spread across the internet, some accompanied by claims that the reaction is proof the vaccine isn't safe. In reality, Dover has an underlying health condition that causes her to faint when she experiences pain, per USA TODAY.
After waking up, Dover sat down for a debrief with reporters. She explained that she had an underlying medical condition that predisposed her to fainting episodes. As explained by Jordan Schachtel in The Dossier:2
After she was brought back to consciousness, a clearly shaken Dover later told the media that she regularly has an over-reactive vagal response (half a dozen recent fainting spells, she said), and added that was why she collapsed onto the ground after taking the shot.
Then, Dover disappeared from the public eye. Any suggestion that the experimental Pfizer-BioNTech product she had received moments before could have caused the incident were waived off and attacked as “conspiracy theories.”3
But objections to this explanation came almost immediately. Continuing from Schachtel’s article:
The incident sparked endless speculation on social media, with many entertaining the possibility that Tiffany Dover was severely injured by the vaccine, or even killed on the spot. This fast became a nightmare PR situation for both the medical center and the vaccine rollout campaign.
On December 21, 2020, four days after she got the shot, CHI Memorial continued its damage control operation by featuring Tiffany in a short video, surrounded by her colleagues. “Nurse leadership supports Tiffany,” read one sign. “We got the shot,” says another.
For reasons unknown, that video has been wiped from social media, and the official accounts that posted it have since taken it down.
Dive into Jordan’s article for the rest of the story up to now.
Despite Dover’s appearance on the NBC News Exclusive — and setting aside theories that the woman on screen is not, in fact, Dover — it remains suspicious that she was absent from the public eye for so long. It’s not at all surprising that so many people became convinced she was either dead or incapacitated.
As Viva Frei summarized on Twitter, Dover explains during the NBC interview that she initially wanted to speak out, but was told “that absolutely would not happen” because it would cause “irrecoverable damages.”4 To who, exactly? To Dover? To CHI Memorial Hospital? Or to Pfizer and BioNTech, or the United States government bankrolling the massive vaccine rollout?
For further analysis and informed commentary on Dover’s interview and the questions that remain unanswered, I recommend watching this clip from Viva Frei’s recent livestream on the topic.
I wish Tiffany Dover the best, and hope it’s true that she was not meaningfully harmed as many speculate.
Report blames paper size for Maricopa County 2022 election machine failures
On Monday, April 10, a report was released by the Maricopa County Board of Directors summarizing an investigation into widespread ballot problems during the 2022 general election in Maricopa County, Arizona.5
Led by Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor, the report concluded that “equipment failure” was to blame, rejecting the notion that human error or malicious intent were at play.
Specifically, McGregor focused on the errors produced by the two types of printers used on election day, finding that the paper used was the wrong size. Despite the fact that the errors only occurred as the result of decisions made by people, it was, in fact, the fault of the tech, in her estimation.
There were a couple particularly interesting parts that stood out to me. First, the investigation based its report in large part on interviews with the people responsible for the election, including Scott Jarrett, Co-Director of Elections, and other employees and representatives within the election team and county government. Also providing testimony were employees of the private contractors responsible for the tabulators and voting machines themselves. These are all people specifically accused of mishandling the election.
Kari Lake, the aggrieved gubernatorial candidate currently in court on these very issues, didn’t like the way this was handled either. She posted a statement on Twitter saying, "Maricopa County has released the results of their internal investigation & has SHOCKINGLY found themselves not guilty of any crime. We told you this was a farce. These people don't think your vote or your opinion matters. And anyone who takes the results of this "investigation" seriously is part of the problem."6
Returning to the content of the report itself, my partner Sam pointed out that the timeline provided to explain the change in paper size didn’t add up.
In 2020, Maricopa County purchased a new type of on-site tabulator that could use either 80-pound or 100-pound paper. As a result of pandemic-induced supply issues, only 80-pound paper could be obtained in sufficient quantities for the March 17, 2020 Presidential Primary Election (PPE).
It seems to me that Maricopa County would have ordered their paper sometime in the weeks (or even months) before the date of the election itself, in order to ensure they weren’t cutting it too close. The World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic occurred on March 11, 2020, with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey following suit the same day.7
If supply chain issues are to blame, then how can the dates be reconciled? Even if Maricopa County usually gets their paper from China, are we to believe there were no other countries with functioning supply chains in the first few months of 2020, all the way up until “lockdown” measures began in the western world in mid-March?
I also found it odd that Sharpies continue to be described as the preferred pen type for marking ballots.
The [Presidential Primary Election], which involved a single race and a one-sided ballot, experienced no issues with the BOD ballots. During the 2020 general election, however, on some ballots, the ink from the "Sharpie" pens provided at the vote centers bled through the paper. Because voting bubbles are offset on the front and back of ballots, any bleed-through cannot actually affect the correct tabulation of votes, and all votes can be counted even if bleed-through occurs.
It’s the footnote underneath that really gets me:
Maricopa County preferred that voters use these pens because the ink dries quickly, as opposed to ballpoint ink, which takes more time to dry and thus can transfer onto the tabulator and cause the tabulator to reject ballots because it "reads" the transferred ink and detects it as a fault.
Really? Sharpie ink dries quicker and transfers less than the ink of ballpoint pens? That doesn’t pass the smell test for me. I don’t think that’s true at all.
Yes, the use of Sharpies alarmed voters at the time as well. The report suggests that even if bleed-through did occur, the votes would still be counted by duplicating the ballot and re-counting it. An article from November 2020 makes the same point, as if it addresses the concerns surrounding the process:8
According to the state's electionsprocedures manual, (sic) if a felt-tip pen mark does bleed through, the ballot will likely get sent for duplication. An election worker will fill out a new ballot using the voter's choices that will be read properly by tabulation machines.
The manual states that the process is overseen by a Ballot Duplication Board comprised of at least two members of different political parties.
"The Ballot Duplication Board duplicates ballots that cannot be read by the tabulation machine but on which the voter has nonetheless clearly indicated their intent to vote on a particular race or ballot measure," the 2019 manual states.
As we’ve previously covered, Lake’s lawsuit is focused on ballot chain-of-custody issues arising from this exact process. People were not only upset that Sharpies were being used; many voters did not trust that their ballots would be properly counted if deposited into the “secure box” for later duplication and re-count.
I highly recommend reading the report for yourself. Download a copy of the report here:
FBI arrest suspect accused of leaking Pentagon Ukraine documents
I have only one question for you, readers: has anyone actually seen these supposedly leaked documents?
Who is Nima Momeni?
Last Friday, I covered the fatal stabbing of tech executive Bob Lee in San Francisco, California. It was unclear who had conducted the attack and what the motive could have been, and authorities seemed suspiciously coy about revealing any details on what leads they may have been chasing down.
But yesterday, an arrest was made. Police have officially accused Nima Momeni of murdering Bob Lee.
It is particularly notable that the 38-year-old Momeni is also a “tech entrepreneur,” and according to police, the attack was neither a mugging nor a random act of violence.9
It only seems right to follow up my previous report, in which we dove into did a deep dive into who Bob Lee was, with another doing the same for Momeni. After all, I am very curious as to what led police to identify him as the killer, and I would love to see if the official story stands up to scrutiny.
What we know about Nima Momeni
According to Momeni’s LinkedIn profile, he attended the University of California, Berkeley.10 Strangely, according to university spokesperson Dan Mogulof, there exists "no record of attendance or graduation."11
He also listed Laney College and Vista College. Laney is a public community college in Oakland, California.12 Vista College, on the other hand, is much more interesting, having been founded in 2006 by a former McKinsey & Company employee, then suddenly going bankrupt in late 2021.1314
Career
Momeni worked at Marfic Technologies from 2005-2007 as a system/network engineer. He then worked at Coast Range Technologies as an IT administrator/consultant from 2006-2012.
On March 17, 2010, Momeni incorporated Expand Information Technology under the name Expand IT Services, LLC.15 Through this company, Momeni claims to have led a group of "local expert enterprise IT professionals dedicated to providing solid, reliable and efficient technology solutions & cost effective support services."
That’s basically all his LinkedIn page has to offer. Except for this little tidbit:
If the murder took place on April 4, and he was arrested on April 13, that means his profile photo was updated in the interim. Unfortunately, no archives exist that I can find of his profile prior to the change, so I can’t see what it used to look like.
Veeeeery interesting.
Expand IT
As the news broke yesterday of Momeni’s arrest, eager readers seeking to learn more about his business by visiting its website were greeted by this error message:16
Rather than having been scrubbed, it appears the website experienced a traffic overload and simply couldn’t handle it, much like what happens as the result of a “denial-of-service” attack. Luckily, the Wayback Machine was on my side.
Navigating back to a snapshot of the website in November 2011 (just over a year after the company was founded), I was able to locate this bio for Momeni:17
Based on this paragraph, it seems there are a good six years of professional experience not accounted for on Momeni’s LinkedIn profile. Also striking is the mention of “his tenure with several venture capital startups,” which are entirely absent from his page.
Neighbours
Several of Momeni’s neighbours were interviewed by the media following his arrest. One anonymously alleged that “Momeni had come to his door the night of the incident, asking for alcohol.” Another neighbour, Chris Donatiello, expressed shock at the arrest and described Momeni as “a super nice guy.” A third neighbour was Sam Singer, who recently opened an office for his public relations firm in the same building as Momeni's live-work space.18
Now, it is rather convenient that Mr. Singer was present at the scene of this promising followup to such an upsetting story. According to the website of Singer Associates, Sam is “one of the nation’s leading communications strategists,” even earning the titles of “The Fixer,” the “Top Gun for Hire” and “one of the most powerful people in the San Francisco Bay Area” due to his “ability to impact the news for his agency’s clients.”19
Mr. Singer is nationally known for handling some of most significant public affairs, corporate communications, and crisis communications campaigns. Clients include Fortune 500 companies and well-regarded corporations, including Chevron, San Francisco 49ers, Lennar, Stanford University, Levi Strauss & Co., The Gap, Visa International, MBIA, Ford Motor Co., AirBnb, Disney, Warner Brothers, EA Sports, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, and other prominent corporations, non-profits, political issues and elected leaders.
To be very specific, Singer Associates’ client list includes a number of entities directly involved in the Bob Lee incident.20
San Francisco General Hospital - the facility where Lee was brought before being pronounced dead;
San Francisco Chronicle - the largest newspaper in the city and a significant media outlet covering the story;
…and the San Francisco Examiner, another local paper covering the story.
I draw no conclusions, but observe how wonderfully coincidental this is — especially given that Singer allegedly just set up his new location right before Momeni’s arrest.
Final thoughts
This is an evolving story, and I have more questions than answers at this point. As I was getting ready to go live, I saw this news story (whose headline has changed twice since I saw it first):21
For now, I will leave you with this:
This is an evolving story.
Caldera, C. (2020, December 23). Fact check: Nurse who fainted after COVID-19 vaccination is alive and well. USA TODAY. http://archive.today/2020.12.24-005926/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/23/fact-check-nurse-who-fainted-after-being-vaccinated-alive/4024424001/
Schachtel, J. (2022, October 10). Nowhere to be found: What really happened to Tiffany Dover? Substack. http://archive.today/2022.10.11-012211/https://dossier.substack.com/p/nowhere-to-be-found-what-really-happened
Dangadze, M. (2020, December 22). What scheme was used to virally spread false information about the death of an American nurse? Myth Detector. https://web.archive.org/web/20221205205735/https://mythdetector.ge/en/what-scheme-was-used-to-virally-spread-false-information-about-the-death-of-an-american-nurse/
Viva Frei [@thevivafrei]. (2023, April 11). "Just watched @BrandyZadrozny ’s piece on @nbc . In summation: Tiffany initially wanted to talk, but was told “that absolutely would not happen”. It would cause “irrecoverable damages”. In Brandy’s podcast, Tiffany’s family asserted Tiffany was bound by an NDA. Yet her employer (CHI Memorial) says they were not aware of any such NDA directive. That’s a pretty big discrepancy. Some follow up questions acutely missing: 1) Who told Tiffany not to talk initially, if it wasn’t her employer? Or are we to believe that Tiffany is lying about that (which I do not believe). 2) Were there any emails? 3) Is / was there an NDA, and if so, between whom? Someone is not a “conspiracy theorist” if they expect these glaring inconsistencies to be answered - or at the very least even addressed - in the “investigative report”. Respectfully submitt…” [Tweet]. Twitter. http://archive.today/2023.04.14-174544/https://twitter.com/thevivafrei/status/1645769884377178112
Printer Investigation Complete. (2023, April 10). Maricopa County, AZ. http://archive.today/2023.04.13-143726/https://www.maricopa.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2690
Kika, T. (2023, April 10). Kari Lake dismisses report blaming ballot paper used in Maricopa County. Newsweek. https://web.archive.org/web/20230414092528/https://www.newsweek.com/kari-lake-dismisses-report-blaming-ballot-paper-used-maricopa-county-1793496
Ducey, D. A. (2020, March 11). Declaration of Emergency *COVID-19*. Office of the Governor of Arizona. https://web.archive.org/web/20221228081401/https://azgovernor.gov/sites/default/files/declaraton_0.pdf
Leingang, R., & Sadeghi, M. (2020, November 5). Fact check: Arizona election departments confirm Sharpies can be used on ballots. USA TODAY. https://web.archive.org/web/20230316043741/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/04/fact-check-sharpiegate-controversy-arizona-false-claim/6164820002/
Entrepreneur arrested in murder of Bob Lee knew Cash App founder, police say. (2023, April 13). ABC7 San Francisco. https://web.archive.org/web/20230413212810/https://abc7news.com/bob-lee-arrest-nima-momeni-cash-app-founder/13121930/
Nina Momeni. LinkedIn. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/nmomeni/
Graff, A. (2023, April 13). Who is Nima Momeni, the man accused of killing tech exec Bob Lee? SFGATE. https://web.archive.org/web/20230413213835/https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/who-is-nima-momeni-suspect-in-bob-lee-case-17895636.php
Laney College. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.04.13-223215/https://www.usnews.com/education/community-colleges/laney-college-CC04521
Schwartz, N. (2021, October 12). For-profit chain Vista College closes abruptly, files for bankruptcy protection. Higher Ed Dive. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225024651/https://www.highereddive.com/news/for-profit-chain-vista-college-closes-abruptly-files-for-bankruptcy-protec/608090/
Home. Education Futures Group. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20211128234007/https://educationfuturesgroup.com/
Expand IT Services, LLC | Business Details | Better Business Bureau® Profile. Better Business Bureau. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.04.13-222533/https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-mateo/profile/information-technology-services/expand-it-services-llc-1116-925615/details
Home. Expand IT. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.04.13-165639/https://www.expand-its.com/
Home. EITS. Retrieved November 13, 2011, from http://archive.today/2011.11.13-091549/http://www.expand-its.com/
Toms, L. (2023, April 13). Emeryville neighbors of Nima Momeni, suspect in Bob Lee murder, express shock after his arrest. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/who-is-nima-momeni-suspect-bob-lee-murder-san-francisco-tech-executive/
Sam Singer. (2019, March 28). Singer Associates Public Relations. http://archive.today/2020.08.01-090254/https://singersf.com/staff/sam-singer/
Our Clients. Singer Associates Public Relations. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.04.14-045429/https://singersf.com/our-clients/
Butterfield, A. (2023, April 14). Brother grilled Bob Lee about relationship with sister before stabbing. Mail Online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11973831/Cash-App-exec-Bob-Lees-accused-killer-Nima-Momeni-hearing-postponed.html