Giuliani election witness who went viral after testimony says she’s running for office

Melissa Carone was widely mocked following her court appearance in December 2020

A conservative activist who was widely mocked after she was called to testify by Rudy Giuliani during a hearing on election fraud in December says she is running for office.

Melissa Carone, who was an IT contractor for Dominion Voting Systems on election day, testified before a Michigan House panel in December 2020 that she had witnessed electoral fraud take place in favour of the Democrats on 3 November’s presidential election.

In testimony that went viral, Ms Carone claimed that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice, but offered no proof to back up her claims.

Ms Carone was even shushed by Mr Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, at one point during the testimony, as a Wayne County judge later ruled that her allegations were simply “not credible.”

Following her testimony going viral, Ms Carone was mocked in a Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch after several viewers compared her bizarre appearance at the hearing in Michigan to an SNL character.

In an interview with Deadline Detroit last week, Ms Carone revealed that she now plans to run for office in Michigan, to represent the state’s 46th District.

“My ultimate goal is to get our ballots hand-counted and clean out Lansing just like draining the swamp in DC because that’s what we need,” she said last Friday, echoing remarks made by Mr Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign.

When asked by Deadline Detroit about the violence that was carried out by a mob of pro-Trump rioters during the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, Ms Carone said that she is not a “dangerous individual” and once again claimed that widespread fraud took place on 3 November.

“Everyone that knows me knows that I’m not a dangerous individual and that I’m totally against violence,” she said, before adding: “What’s dangerous is somebody stealing the election.”

Mr Trump and his allies have repeatedly falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in November’s presidential election in favour of the Democrats. There is no evidence for these claims.

Following the election, Mr Giuliani, who led the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the election results, filed more than 50 lawsuits in several swing states, including Michigan, but they were all unsuccessful.

Ms Carone repeatedly made false claims about electoral fraud, leading Dominion to send her a cease and desist letter telling her to stop spreading misinformation.

The organisation, one of the largest voting machine companies in the US, also revealed that Ms Carone had only been hired for one day to “to clean glass on machines and complete other menial tasks,” and was not privy to any insider information.

On 24 January, Ms Carone said that she had created a new Facebook page for her campaign, “due to the countless restrictions I've obtained I'm nervous FB is going to perminately shut it down.”

Just four days after Mr Trump left office, Ms Carone wrote on the page: “Thank you for all the support, I will continue fighting for election reform, protecting our constitutional rights as Americans, and fully supporting Donald Trump.”

She added: “We are under attack, we must come together and demand our freedom back!”