Debunking Hammer & Scorecard, a cheap hoax spawned by a con artist

Originated in 2017. Rebranded in 2020.

Discussion over “Hammer and Scorecard,” an alleged CIA program that supposedly works to fix elections all over the world, is setting the media ablaze, thanks in large part to high-profile right-of-center media personalities. Yet there is no evidence that Hammer and Scorecard is a real program that ever existed. The idea is the work of a serial fraudster by the name of Dennis Montgomery. He is the single source for this claim. After conducting a detailed investigation, I can confirm that there are no other first-hand sources for Hammer and Scorecard. All of the claims originate with Mr. Montgomery, which, as you’ll see, is crucial to understanding the lack of legitimacy for these assertions.

Hammer and Scorecard is a hoax that originated in 2017, which Mr. Montgomery used to file a lawsuit at the height of the “Trump-Russia” hysteria. Montgomery alleged that there are supposed sophisticated intelligence programs that were used to wiretap President Trump. In the lawsuit, Montgomery alleged that he was ignored as a whistleblower, and asked the court for 90 million dollars in damages. 

Because the lawsuit was patently absurd and baseless, it did not achieve any notoriety, and Montgomery was known as someone who had a decades-long history of making up sensational, baseless claims. However, his case was “reported” on in 2017 by two writers named Alan Jones and Mary Fanning, who, like Montgomery, reseeded this story in 2020 to focus on election fraud. 

Montgomery and his network have attempted to enrich themselves off of Hammer and Scorecard. Mr. Montgomery set up a GoFundMe that raised thousands of dollars before the website took it down. Jones and Fanning, for their part, wrote a book on Amazon about Hammer and Scorecard. Neither entity has ever provided evidence for Hammer and Scorecard.

Montgomery’s GoFundMe has since been shut down, but it helped provide insight into the con man’s bonkers conspiracies.

His GoFundMe allowed me to trace a path to absolute madness, as it linked to a website called BLXWare. 

BLXWare, which is run by Montgomery and unnamed associates, is rife with one allegation after another that there is a giant conspiracy involving the intelligence community, and that this network is hacking into a variety of entities, which includes “Texas Churches,” The Home Depot, and random pharmacies, to name a few. The CIA and other intelligence agencies are also spying on pro-life groups, pro-choice groups, random satellites in space, oil companies, and a never-ending list of “victims,” the website claims.

In another screed, the BLXWare website asks:

“Why were John Brennan, James Clapper, and the CIA hacking clinical laboratories? Why did the CIA want direct access to control the blood analyzers in the laboratory?”

If you want to help uncover this global conspiracy, the website asks that you send donations to a company called 3Net Labs, LLC. 

What is 3Net Labs, LLC?

I discovered through a few internet inquiries that this company is among a series of organizations with similar names registered to Dennis Montgomery, the serial fraudster.

The Hammer and Scorecard claims fit well with Montgomery’s modus operandi. As shown above, he has in the past used this strategy of alleging a widespread, impossible to uncover, global conspiracy in defrauding U.S. intelligence agencies and the Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff’s Office to the tune of millions of dollars.

"After reviewing all the hard drivers our experts concluded that Dennis Montgomery deliberately compiled massive amounts of data on to these drives for the purpose of obfuscating the fact the data itself contained no evidence to support Dennis Montgomery's claims,” an internal email from the Maricopa Sheriff’s office read, after they had discovered the fraudulent operation.

Montgomery also runs an outfit called SETEC Labs, LLC, which sells a “Family of AI products.” The website for SETEC Labs claims that his products can pull of unbelievable miracles, such as doubling the memory of your mobile device, predicting the stock market, finding submerged submarines, and helping doctors save lives by detecting anomalies, to name a few “capabilities” of his software.

Okay, so how did this serial hoaxer’s claim go mainstream?

It relied initially on the credibility of a retired Air Force General named Thomas McInernery, who has been promoting Mr. Montgomery’s claims since at least 2017.

Many have incorrectly concluded that Gen. McInernery can vouch for the program because he has the credentials to do so. However, he can not possibly be a first-hand source for an application that allegedly relies on sophisticated computer software that features mobile application technology. He retired from the military in 1994, well before a program such as Hammer and Scorecard could have been created. 

In an appearance on the Charlie Kirk show, McInerney made clear that he was getting his information on Hammer and Scorecard from the aforementioned Montgomery, who he called “the smartest man in the world.”

McInenery set the gears in motion for this widespread conspiracy when he appeared earlier this month on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room show. He, along with Trump election lawyer Sidney Powell, vouched for Hammer and Scorecard and its supposed nefarious activity.

“You going to be able to stop Hammer and Scorecard?” Bannon asked at the end of the segment, to which Powell replied: “We intend to stop Hammer and Scorecard.”

From Bannon’s War Room, Powell then took Hammer and Scorecard to Fox News, Newsmax, and other major platforms to advance the legitimacy of the conspiracy, which again, traces back to a single source, who is a serial fraudster.

Powell, for reasons unknown, has used Hammer and Scorecard as one of the focal points for the president’s election fraud challenge. On Tuesday, she appeared on Newsmax again and alleged that the CIA was running a global election fraud machine through Hammer and Scorecard. She has continued to allude to Hammer and Scorecard throughout the week.

 The Trump election team may very well have a case for widespread voter fraud, but Hammer and Scorecard is not it. Hammer and Scorecard is a simple information operation that is being used to enrich Mr. Montgomery and his network, through individuals who are either knowingly or unknowingly fueling his operation. It has no basis in reality. There are zero reasons to believe Hammer and Scorecard ever existed. It’s a cheap hoax spawned by a con man.