MIAMI (AP) — Voting technology firm Smartmatic is seeking to dismiss a criminal indictment for money laundering, blaming President Donald Trump and his allies for seeking its prosecution as part of a “campaign of retribution” against those they blame for his 2020 election loss.
Smartmatic's parent company, UK-based SGO Corporation, was added to a criminal indictment last Fall previously charging several executives with paying $1 million in bribes to election officials in the Philippines.
In a motion to dismiss the indictment filed Tuesday, attorneys for Smartmatic said the company had been cooperating with the Justice Department since it first learned of its investigation in 2021, including by producing millions of pages of documents and making presentations to federal agents. A trial date for the executives, including co-founder Roger Pinate, had been set and the company believed that it was in the clear.
But when Trump returned to the White House, the Justice Department reversed course and decided to press charges against Smartmatic. Attorneys for the company said the decision was prompted by Trump's demands to prosecute his perceived enemies and his “mantra” that Smartmatic helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden — allegations that are at the heart of a a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed by Smartmatic against the president's allies in the media.
“The prosecution of SGO furthers their collective false narrative that President Trump did not actually lose the 2020 election,” Smartmatic said in the filing in Miami federal court.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys likened the prosecution to the Justice Department's targeting of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Salvadoran migrant who was criminally charged for conduct years earlier after he successfully sued the Trump administration over its decision to deport him.
In the years since the election, Smartmatic USA has exercised its right to hold those individuals and entities legally accountable for their deluge of defamatory statements and the attendant damage inflicts on its business, putting it squarely in the crosshairs for retribution.”
The criminal case against Smartmatic and its employees stem from payments, between 2015 and 2018, that were allegedly made to obtain a contract with the Philippines government to help run that country’s 2016 presidential election. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.
As part of the criminal case, prosecutors in August sought the court’s permission to introduce evidence they argue shows that revenue from a $300 million contract with Los Angeles County to help modernize its voting systems was diverted to a “ slush fund” controlled by Pinate through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other means.
They also accused Pinate of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime election chief by giving her a luxury home with a pool in Caracas. Prosecutors say the home was transferred to the election chief in an attempt to repair relations following Smartmatic’s abrupt exit from Venezuela in 2017 when it accused then President Nicolas Maduro ’s government of manipulating tallied results in elections for a rubber-stamping constituent assembly.
Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who found early success running elections while the late Hugo Chavez, a devotee of electronic voting, was in power. The company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other technology to help carry out elections in 25 countries, from Argentina to Zambia.
But Smartmatic has said its business tanked after Fox News gave Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.
Fox said it was legitimately reporting on newsworthy events but eventually aired a piece refuting the allegations after Smartmatic’s lawyers complained. Nonetheless, it has aggressively defended itself against the defamation lawsuit in New York — arguing that the company was facing imminent collapse over its own internal misconduct, not due to any negative coverage.
President Donald Trump waves on the South Lawn as he returns to the White House following a trip to Florida, Monday, March 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel says Iran has been firing cluster munitions throughout their 10-day war — adding a complicated and deadly challenge to Israel’s already-stretched air defenses.
The warheads burst open at high altitudes, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets across a wide area. The smaller bombs, which at night can resemble orange fireballs, are difficult to intercept and have proven lethal.
Normally restrictive about releasing information on Iranian hits and damage, Israeli authorities in recent days have sought to educate the public about their dangers, which can persist as unexploded bombs on the ground even after civilians leave shelters. At least three people have been killed, including two at a construction site in central Israel on Tuesday.
Over 120 countries have signed an international convention banning the use of cluster munitions, although Israel, the United States and Iran are among the nations that have not joined the treaty. The weapon has been used for decades in conflicts around the world, including by Israel when it fought the Iran-allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2006.
Here’s what to know about cluster munitions:
After what’s called a parent munition is launched, it releases smaller submunitions at an altitude of 7-10 kilometers (4-6 miles). These bomblets scatter across a large area, from several hundred meters (yards) to several kilometers (miles), trading precision for coverage.
Critics worldwide argue that cluster munitions kill or maim indiscriminately, with unexploded bomblets remaining dangerous long after their use. In Israel, they can be especially dangerous because most of the missiles have been aimed at its densely populated center.
“Cluster bombs don’t create real damage to buildings, only people,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.
An Israeli military official, speaking anonymously under army briefing rules, said Tuesday that roughly half of the projectiles Iran was launching toward Israel had been cluster munitions.
Israel’s Arrow missile-defense system has done a good job intercepting incoming ballistic missiles, Kalisky said. But if cluster munitions are released before the missile is destroyed, there is little that can be done.
Israel’s Iron Dome system is geared toward intercepting smaller rockets fired from short ranges and lower altitudes. But it isn’t designed to destroy the clusters once they’ve dispersed into dozens of bomblets, Kalisky added.
Unlike heavier explosives, the bomblets — often weighing less than 3 kilograms (7 pounds) — are most dangerous to targets like cars, storefronts or people caught outside shelters.
“They pose a particular threat to the civilian population both during and after use, with victims often including a high proportion of children,” according to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The submunitions fail to explode more often than other kinds of warheads. Unexploded ordnance can act like a land mine, detonating later and killing indiscriminately.
The Open Source Munitions Portal, which authenticates publicly sourced images of munitions worldwide, has published several images of unexploded submunitions found in Israel this week.
Most of the damage in Israel has been caused by larger Iranian missiles, but Iran has been using cluster munitions on a “nearly daily basis,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman. He says Iran fired similar projectiles during the 12-day war in June.
The military said the Iranian warheads contain between 20 and 24 bomblets with explosives weighing up to 5 kilograms (11 pounds).
The Israeli military’s Home Front Command has distributed flyers warning residents not to touch unexploded submunitions. A public service announcement from police also warned people not to touch anything they see and to call authorities instead.
According to the Missile Defense Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Iran said in 2017 that its Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile could carry multiple warheads. The missiles are the largest of Iran’s submunition-dispersing arsenal. Iran also has submunition-equipped shorter range Zolfaghar missiles.
Cluster munitions, including those seen in Associated Press video flying westward toward Israel, can look like falling fireballs — an effect caused by the friction of reentering the atmosphere.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, said little open-source information exists about Iran’s cluster munitions beyond state television reports of leaders touring missile factories and videos from military exercises. But videos showing them used last week indicate that some Iranian missiles carrying cluster munition warheads are designed to open at high altitude, scattering them across an area far larger than most military targets.
Design components that disperse them at such heights — including a protective coating on the submunitions that can withstand the heat of atmospheric reentry — appear to show they were built for far less precise use than cluster munitions seen in other conflicts.
“The design seems to scatter submunitions so widely as to suggest it was designed purely as a weapon of terror, scattering its explosive cargo indiscriminately over a wide area,” Jenzen-Jones said.
In July 2025, after the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, Amnesty International said Iran’s “deliberate use of such inherently indiscriminate weapons is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
Cluster munitions — including those more targeted than Iran’s — are not illegal but are barred by the Geneva Conventions for use in civilian areas. They’re also banned under recent international agreements signed by more than 120 nations.
Cluster munitions were first used by Nazi Germany, when it dropped “butterfly bombs” on the United Kingdom in World War II. The U.S. has used various kinds in Vietnam, Laos, Iraq and Afghanistan, and provided cluster munitions to Ukraine. Russia was accused of using cluster bombs in its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a charge Moscow denied.
During a 2006 war in Lebanon with the militant group Hezbollah, the U.N. estimated some 30% to 40% of Israeli cluster bombs failed to explode, leaving southern Lebanon littered with hundreds of thousands of bomblets.
The U.S. State Department said Israel likely used American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas during the 2006 war, after U.N. demining teams found unexploded bomblets in hundreds of locations.
Israel is not using cluster bombs currently, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity under the military’s briefing rules.
Metz reported from Ramallah. West Bank. Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv contributed.
Missiles launched from Iran are seen in the sky over central Israel, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
