Donald Trump's lawyer Rudi Giuliani has stated that the votes "stolen" from the incumbent US president "went to Barcelona". In an interview with the Fox network, Giuliani internationalized his theory of a fraudulent result in last week's presidential election, tying Catalonia's capital city into the conspiracy, without presenting any evidence.
The lawyer explained that the software used in the US presidential election is owned by the Canadian company Dominion, linked to the Venezuelan firm Smartmatic, through the Spanish corporation Indra which, he said, is based in Barcelona.
"Dominion is a company owned by another company called Smartmatic, through an intermediary company called Indra," he said. "Smartmatic was founded in about 2004. It was made up of three Venezuelans, who were very close to the dictator Hugo Chávez. It was created to win elections. It is the company that owns Dominion. Although Dominion is Canadian, all its software is from Smartmatic", he added. And he insisted that the alleged fraud was committed from Barcelona: "The votes go to Barcelona, Spain."
On Thursday, Donald Trump tweeted along similar lines to his lawyer, pointing the finger at Dominion. The outgoing president asserted that the company had deleted 2.7 million votes across the US, without providing any evidence. Twitter warns that the claim may not be true.
Indra, the Spanish firm which Giuliani asserts is the Barcelona connection, has denied participating in the US presidential vote count. In statements to the Europa Press agency, the company said "it has never had any contractual or commercial relationship" with the two other companies that Giuliani cites, which are its competitors, nor has it carried out "any project for the management of electoral processes" with any of them.
Indra is the company which has been in charge of the management of most electoral processes in Spain since the country's transition to democracy in the 1970s. It was in charge of the last elections in Catalonia, in December 2017.
On several occasions, the company has been accused of fraud in Latin American countries. It is 18.75% owned by the Spanish government (via the Spanish state holding company SEPI), 11.32% by the investment holding company Alba, 9.80% by financial services firm FMR, 5.67% for Fidelity Low Priced Stock Fund and about 3% by Norway's Norges Bank, State Street Corporation and T. Rowe Price Associates.