Mellissa Carone, the star witness in the Trump campaign's "voter fraud" case in Michigan, has become the subject of speculation claiming she was paid to make the allegations of ballot tampering after her acting and modelling profile started being circulated across social media.
Carone accompanied Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani as a key witness in the campaign's claims of voter fraud at a hearing before the Michigan House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. She claimed to have worked as a contractor for Dominion Voting Systems, a vote-counting software that Trump maintains is responsible for widespread election fraud.
During her testimony, she insisted that she was witness to blatant and massive fraud when ballots were being counted in the state and also alleged that she saw poll workers running the same ballots through voting machines "thousands of times."
These were just some of the absurd claims of election irregularities in Michigan made by Carone as part of the Trump campaign's bid to overturn the state's presidential election results, which President-elect Joe Biden won with 154,000 votes.
Viral Sensation
However, Carone's animated behavior before the state House panel instantly turned her into a viral phenomenon on social media, spurring memes with some users joking about her "drunk" appearance while others actually that she was a 'Saturday Night Live' character.
In a viral clip from the hearing, Rudy Giuliani even tried to shush her after she interrupted and started yelling during an exchange with GOP Rep. Steve Johnson, who questioned her claim that a batch of 30,000 votes counted multiple times would not be reflected in the poll book.
Melissa Carone's Explore Talent Profile
In the wake of her viral appearance in court, some internet sleuths managed to track down her acting profile on Explore Talent - an online platform for Actors & Models to find performing opportunities and jobs.
The profile lists Carone as a 31-year-old actor/model from Detroit, Michigan, along with her stats including height, weight, body type, ethnicity, eye color etc. The profile also includes several pictures of Carone and a resume that reads, "I've been modelling for years, it's my passion!"
The Explore Talent profile has now led to speculation on Twitter that she may have been paid by the Trump campaign to claim she was witness to widespread voter fraud.
Here are some of the reactions:
