&quot;Affidavits&quot; which aren&#39;t signed under penalty of perjury?
<p><a href="https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/trump-campaign-lawyer-admits-to-judge-our-search-for-evidence-of-fraud-produced-obvious-lies-and-spam/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">In Trump's lawsuit in Arizona</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A Trump campaign attorney conceded in court on Thursday morning that he tried to enter hundreds of dodgy form-filed affidavits into evidence, even though their own investigation found that a subset of the sworn statements that they received were filled with lies and “spam.”</p>
<p>... Trump campaign’s lawyer Kory Langhofer, who explained the automated process that reflected their post-election evidence hunt. It included an online form whose reliability Langhofer claimed was boosted by the fact that it included a CAPTCHA, which weeded out the bots. The attorneys then visited the complainants’ homes. The Trump campaign said it excluded the submissions of those who swore to lies, but they included the ones they could not prove were lying into evidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would seem that Trump's lawyer did <strong>not</strong> print out the affidavits and then have each affiant sign it under penalty of perjury, because if he <em>had</em> done that then he wouldn't have needed to mention CAPTCHAs at all.  So were the things the lawyer was trying to submit really affidavits?  Were they intended to be some weird form of exhibit rather than testimony?  Hearsay admitted under a hearsay exception?</p>

<p>So what it looks like is that some subset of affidatives were taken from people who Trump's lawyers could not prove were lying and did not submit those that they could factually prove were lying.   There is a difference between the two in that, while the latter are definately lying in their statements, the former <em><strong>COULD</strong></em> be lying, but the lawyers found nothing to prove this accusations.  Because you cannot prove a negative (&quot;I did not lie&quot; is a negative statement) they must assume that the people making affidatives are making true statements no matter how outlandish the statement seems.</p>
<p>Affidatives are evidence but the actual testimony of the people signing them is better evidence.  If it turns out that these people were lying on the Affidative or in testomony,  they can be charged with perjury but at this point, it looks like Trump's lawyers did some due diligence to vert some of the people who reached out to them before filing the case.</p>
<p>As for the Hearsay discussion, under the U.S. rules of evidence, Hearsay is not generally permitted but with some exceptions.  One notable exception is &quot;statements against the adversary's interests&quot; which allows an out of court statement made by another person who could be called to testify (the standard legal definition of Hearsay) IF the statement hurts the adversary party in a case.   If Alice says in court, &quot;I heard Bob say 'I killed Charlie in the Conservatory with a pipe!'&quot; This would be permitted as Bob would not reliably make this statement in court and Alice is providing evidence that Bob did admit that he killed Charlie.  It is evidence that hurts Bob.  If Alice testifis that Dave told her Bob said he killed Charlie, than this would be inpermissable Hearsay because Dave should be testifying to this, not Alice.</p>

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