Hours after the United States joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran, President Donald Trump posted a link on Truth Social connecting the military action to unverified claims that Iran helped rig the 2020 US election. The post, published around 4:30 am Eastern time on Saturday, read: “Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.”
The linked article came from Just the News, a pro-Trump outlet that offered no supporting evidence beyond describing an Iranian “sophisticated election influence effort.” The White House did not respond to questions about whether the alleged interference factored into the decision to strike Iran.
A Conspiracy Theory With No Verified Basis
The claim Trump amplified traces back to a broader election-denial theory involving Venezuela, China, and Iran. Patrick Byrne, a prominent figure in election-denial circles who pushed Trump to seize voting machines after 2020, told WIRED the post relates to a conspiracy theory he has been promoting for years. Byrne laid out the full theory in a 45-minute presentation posted to X in 2024, which spread widely within election-denial communities.
The theory centers on Smartmatic, a voting software company, which the theory falsely claims was created by the Venezuelan government to remotely rig elections globally. Smartmatic has repeatedly denied all allegations and successfully sued right-wing outlet Newsmax for defamation over similar claims.
Iran’s assigned role, according to Byrne, was financial concealment. “They act as paymasters. They keep certain payments that would reveal this [operation] out of the banking system, out of the Swift system so you can’t see it,” Byrne said in his presentation. “It’s done through a transfer pricing mechanism run through Iran in oil.” When asked for evidence, Byrne did not respond.
What Actual Documented Iranian Interference Looks Like
Two verified instances of Iranian election interference do exist, and neither resembles Byrne’s claims. In 2021, the Justice Department charged two Iranians for running an influence operation designed to threaten US voters. In 2024, three Iranian government hackers were charged with compromising the Trump campaign as part of an effort to disrupt that year’s election.
Byrne’s allegations go far beyond either of those cases and have not been verified by any law enforcement or intelligence body.
The Draft Executive Order
The conspiracy theory has moved closer to official policy channels. Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and also represents former Colorado election official Tina Peters, has emailed these claims directly to Trump in recent months. Those emails included a 17-page draft executive order, co-authored by Byrne and other election deniers, that falsely asserts Trump can declare a national emergency based on foreign election interference and use it to seize control of US elections.
Legal experts have dismissed the order. Trump told reporters he was unaware of it, though he has recently signaled openness to bypassing Congress on election-related actions.
Trump has consistently used unverified 2020 election claims to drive administration policy, from raids on election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, to lawsuits demanding unredacted voter rolls. Saturday’s post suggests that pattern now extends to how the White House publicly frames military action abroad.
Photo by Charles Criscuolo on Pexels
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