Italygate — Italian Satellites Stole the US Election

Overview

In the first week of January 2021 — as the United States lurched toward what would become the January 6 Capitol breach — a conspiracy theory emerged that was so baroque, so internationally flavored, and so completely detached from technical reality that it stood out even in a landscape dominated by claims of Venezuelan voting machines and suitcases full of ballots.

The theory: Italian military satellites, operated by defense contractor Leonardo SpA, had been used by the CIA to upload manipulated vote tallies directly into American voting machines, switching millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. An Italian defense contractor employee had confessed. The evidence was being suppressed by the Deep State. Italy had stolen the American election.

This theory — known as Italygate — was not merely the fevered product of anonymous internet forums. It was presented to the White House Chief of Staff. It was forwarded to the Department of Justice. It was discussed by sitting members of Congress. It represented one of the final, desperate throws in the effort to overturn the 2020 election — and it was, by any technical, legal, or factual standard, complete nonsense.

The Claims

The Maria Zack Video

The theory was primarily promoted by Maria Zack, head of a small nonprofit called Nations in Action, and Brad Johnson, a former CIA officer turned conservative commentator. In early January 2021, Zack recorded a video laying out the core claims:

1. An employee of Leonardo SpA — an Italian defense and aerospace company — named Arturo D’Elia had participated in a plot to manipulate U.S. election data
2. D’Elia and others used Leonardo’s military-grade satellites and technology to download U.S. vote tallies, manipulate them to switch votes from Trump to Biden, and upload the altered data back to U.S. election systems
3. The CIA’s Rome station had coordinated the operation
4. D’Elia had confessed and provided a sworn affidavit from prison (he was already incarcerated on unrelated hacking charges)
5. The Italian government was cooperating with the cover-up

Zack’s video went viral in pro-Trump circles, racking up millions of views across platforms. The claims were amplified by right-wing media outlets, Telegram channels, and social media accounts already saturated with election fraud narratives.

The White House Meeting

The most alarming aspect of Italygate was how high it reached. Zack and associates secured a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to present the theory. The exact date is disputed, but it occurred in late December 2020 or early January 2021.

Meadows also forwarded the Italygate claims to the Department of Justice. In subsequent congressional testimony, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen confirmed that he had received the claims and passed them to his deputy, Richard Donoghue. Donoghue’s email response, revealed during the January 6 Committee hearings, was succinct: “Pure insanity.”

Despite the DOJ’s dismissal, Meadows continued to pursue the theory. Text messages released by the January 6 Committee showed Meadows engaging with Italygate proponents and asking for updates on the supposed investigation.

Why It Was Wrong

The Technical Impossibility

The fundamental problem with Italygate is that it required something that doesn’t exist: internet-connected voting machines receiving satellite uploads.

American voting machines are not connected to the internet. This is not an accident — it’s a deliberate design feature intended to prevent exactly the kind of remote manipulation Italygate described. Vote tabulation systems are air-gapped (physically isolated from networks). Ballots are counted locally. Results are transmitted to state authorities through dedicated, non-internet channels. The concept of a satellite “uploading” altered vote totals to voting machines is technically impossible — not difficult, not improbable, but impossible given the architecture of the systems.

Even if voting machines were somehow connected to the internet (they aren’t), the logistics of the claimed manipulation would require:

• Real-time access to vote tabulation systems across thousands of jurisdictions
• The ability to alter results in a manner consistent with down-ballot votes (to avoid detection)
• Coordinated satellite coverage of the entire continental United States
• Penetration of systems maintained by different vendors using different software in different states

This is not how elections work. It is not how satellites work. It is not how computers work.

The Leonardo SpA Denial

Leonardo SpA — a major Italian defense contractor with $14 billion in annual revenue — categorically denied any involvement in the alleged plot. The company stated that its satellite systems were not used for any election-related purpose and that the claims were “unfounded and fanciful.”

The D’Elia “Confession”

Arturo D’Elia, the Leonardo employee who was allegedly the key witness, was indeed in prison — but for unrelated hacking charges involving Leonardo’s internal systems, not election fraud. The purported “sworn affidavit” from D’Elia was never authenticated. Italian investigators examined the claims and found no evidence supporting them. D’Elia’s lawyer indicated that his client had not provided the confession attributed to him.

The Italian Investigation

Italian prosecutors did investigate the claims — not because they found them credible but because they had been raised through diplomatic channels. The investigation found no evidence of any kind supporting the allegations. No Italian government officials or intelligence personnel were implicated. The matter was effectively closed.

The Broader Context

The Post-Election Conspiracy Market

Italygate emerged during a period when the market for election fraud theories was essentially infinite. Trump supporters were consuming and sharing theories at an unprecedented rate, and the theories were escalating in scope and improbability. Dominion Voting Systems, Hugo Chavez (dead since 2013), Chinese thermostats, Iranian hackers — each new theory was wilder than the last, and each attracted millions of believers.

Italygate fit the pattern: it offered a specific, dramatic narrative with named conspirators, a foreign government, military technology, and a confession. The fact that it was technically impossible and factually unsupported was irrelevant to its target audience, which was not evaluating evidence but seeking confirmation.

The Desperate Final Days

The timing of Italygate — the first week of January 2021, days before the January 6 certification of the Electoral College results — placed it in the context of increasingly frantic efforts to prevent the transfer of power. The theory was one of many claims circulated in the hope that some piece of “evidence,” however fabricated, might provide a pretext for blocking certification.

That White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was willing to entertain a theory that the DOJ called “pure insanity” reflects the atmosphere in the final days of the Trump presidency: an environment in which the normal filters between conspiracy theories and executive decision-making had completely broken down.

Timeline

Sources & Further Reading

• January 6th Select Committee. Final Report. U.S. House of Representatives, 2022.
• Rosen, Jeffrey, and Richard Donoghue. Congressional testimony regarding DOJ interactions with the White House, 2021.
• Leonardo SpA. Public statement denying involvement, 2021.
• Bump, Philip. “The ‘Italygate’ Election Conspiracy Theory, Explained.” Washington Post, January 2021.
• Mazzetti, Mark, and Adam Goldman. “How Pro-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa at the Capitol.” New York Times, March 2021.

Related Theories

• 2020 Election Fraud — The broader election denial ecosystem
• Dominion Voting Machines — Another debunked voting technology conspiracy
• Spygate — Earlier claims of foreign intelligence interference in U.S. elections