Arizona figures prominently and the word audit appears a lot in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s recent four-count indictment of Trump, but the document does not connect the word, or Trump’s role, to the mess that occurred in Phoenix following the 2020 election. It could.
When the Maricopa County “audit” of 2.1 million ballots began in April 2021, some puzzled reporters wondered why Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based firm with no election recount experience, was hired to conduct the review. After all, firms with relevant experience had bid on the project but their proposals were ignored. When Senate President Karen Fann was asked about the hire, she simply said Cyber Ninjas is “well qualified,” a baldfaced lie.
Why Fann lied, or why she later reneged on an agreement with House Speaker Bowers for a joint-chamber audit, is anyone’s guess—someone talked her into lying and out of a promise to a friend. Eventually, though, as the audit limped into summer 2021, the ineptitude, lies, and grifting that played out on our screens daily drained Karen Fann, a respected rural legislator who rose to Senate President, but who couldn’t defend or answer for the bullshit. Who could? Whether Sen. Fann was a willing collaborator with Trump’s people, or a useful idiot, is another question, but it all ends the same: Whatever Trump touches dies. Her reputation and political career in the toilet, Karen Fann retired.
The outcome of the Arizona audit is well-known: No election fraud was found and Joe Biden, who won Maricopa County by 45,109 votes, received another 360. In addition, the estimated $150,000 project ended up costing taxpayers $5 million. So, yes, it was a face-eating clusterfuck in more ways than one for Republicans, but it’s still not clear who was pulling the strings. That’s coming into focus.
The Arizona Republic sued to get access to tens of thousands of texts, emails, and phone records related to the audit, arguing in court for two years that the project was funded with taxpayer dollars and therefore the public has a right to know what transpired—especially because it was such a costly boondoggle that didn’t even publish a final report. The courts mostly agreed with the newspaper, ordering Cyber Ninjas to turn over thousands of communications; when CEO Doug Logan balked, Cyber Ninjas was fined $50,000 a day, a total that now reaches into the millions.
An early batch of emails that was finally released confirmed what experienced election observers were saying during the audit: Cyber Ninjas doesn’t know WTF they’re doing and their numbers are made-up. More disturbing, the firm’s CEO, Doug Logan, has ties to Trump, Michael Flynn, the pillow peckerhead, and other players in MAGA world. He was in The Deep Rig movie, a conspiracy turd of a film, based on a book by Patrick Byrne, the overstock billionaire (he would help Cyber Ninjas raise millions). So Logan’s a known denier: Before he was hired to oversee the Maricopa County audit, Logan was trying to overturn the election results in Michigan and Georgia, where he remains under investigation for tampering with voter machines. How does he get to Arizona?
More recent emails and texts make it even clearer that the person pulling the levers of the Maricopa County audit was Donald J. Trump. Far from a homegrown, bottom-up call by Arizona Republicans to investigate local fraud, the Maricopa County audit was another ingredient in Trump’s treasonous stew, joining the fake electors, the 60-plus lawsuits, the arm-twisting calls to state officials, the weaponization of DOJ, the pressure on Pence, and the Jan. 6 riot itself.
Most of those ingredients were cooking in Arizona, all of them initiated by Trump: the audit, fake electors (two groups, actually), eight unsuccessful lawsuits, and many calls pressuring election officials. If you scratch that scab, you’ll likely find the same local people orchestrating the crimes for Trump—people like Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, who tried to stop the vote count on election night, coordinated the fake elector plot, and helped Cyber Ninjas vet volunteers for the audit. Ward’s coup stench is unbearable. Jack Smith has her phone records.
So why did Senate President Fann hire Cyber Ninjas? It wasn’t because, as she said, the firm was “experienced” and “qualified” because it was neither of those things. Instead, Giuliani had connected Sen. Fann to election denier and Trump associate Col. Phil Waldron, a nutter who was responsible for many of the fraud claims Giuliani was making.
In Arizona in November 2020, Waldron, serving as a witness for Giuliani, said voting machines are “vulnerable everywhere,” falsely claimed that Arizona voting machines are connected to the internet, and stated incorrectly that signatures on mail-in ballots are not verified.
So when Sen. Fann discussed the upcoming audit with Waldron, he endorsed Doug Logan for the job—not because Logan’s company had extensive recount experience (it had zip), but because he knew Logan was working to overturn election results in Michigan and Georgia, because he was too.
Waldron was working to subvert the election by sowing doubt about electronic voting, pushing for election “audits” in the states, including Arizona, and testifying as a witness for Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in hearings in Georgia and Michigan.
Giuliani and his band of nitwits were up to their eyeballs in other Arizona schemes: He called Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers more than once, urging him to call the Legislature into session in order to stop Arizona’s certification. He called Republican leaders to a meeting at the Senate where he and Col. Waldron explained how the Legislature could ignore the results and install their electors. He held a meeting at a Phoenix hotel for officials, hosted by crackpot Oath Keeper Mark Finchem and attended by far-right Reps. Gosar and Biggs, where they spewed unproven allegations of “illegal” voters and other made-up nutball Q-fermented BS.
Giuliani and his team appeared about 2 miles away at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix to make claims of widespread election problems: Voting machines could be hacked. Signatures on mail-in ballots were not verified. Arizona, a state of 7 million people, has 5 million illegal immigrants, and surely some of them must have voted.
Giuliani was busy here on behalf of Trump after the 2020 election, and he remained in regular contact with Arizona Republicans at county, state, and federal levels as Trump schemed to remain in office. My money’s on John Eastman, who’d met with Arizona officials to sell his screwball theories, as the originator of the audit idea. Regardless, in early December 2020 Trump urged Maricopa County to conduct a forensic audit: “On Dec. 2, Trump called for a forensic audit during a 46-minute video speech from the White House in which he said the nation’s election systems were under coordinated assault and siege.” Two days later Sen. Fann and Rep. Bowers said the Arizona Senate and House would undertake a joint audit; a week later Sen. Fann said the Senate would go it alone. Someone broke that up. I blame Yoko.
Now we learn Giuliani had a mole at the Maricopa County audit who reported to him—and he to Trump.
Rudy Giuliani’s office granted a specific shift to a volunteer at Veterans Memorial Coliseum for the recount of 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots about two weeks before it began, according to an email obtained by The Arizona Republic.
The email details the volunteer’s hours, days and length of service and notes it was authorized by another Trump confidant who later helped manage and finance the ballot review, which the Senate billed as a nonpartisan effort to ensure the results were accurate.
The volunteer, a Phoenix Republican and election denier named Linda Brickman who’s well-known in conspiracy circles, stated that she worked for Giuliani under the direction of Christina Bobb, a Trump lawyer. At the time Bobb was the anchor for One America News Network, the only media outlet allowed complete access to the audit. She was also a go-between for Giuliani-Logan-Trump. Bobb helped Giuliani set up his political presentations, and records show she shared more than 2,000 emails and texts with Doug Logan—hardly an objective reporter! She also conducted on-air fundraising for the audit, targeting an OAN audience that thinks Fox is too liberal. (Bobb later figured in the classified documents case, when she affirmed all files had been turned over to the appropriate agencies, a lie.)
There are still far too many Arizona dots to connect, and I hope Jack Smith is not finished making connections: Trump-Giuliani-Bobb-Waldron-Fann-Logan. To that pile of garbage add Arizona’s insurrection enablers in Congress, shit-stains like Gosar and Biggs, who helped plan Jan. 6 and meddled in the Maricopa County audit—making calls and sending letters to Speaker Bowers and other election officials. Magazine sweepstakes winner Andy Biggs (yes, he really won $10 million) made one last call to Rusty Bowers before roll call on Jan. 6, asking him to support decertification of Arizona’s vote. Bowers refused, so Biggs stood alone on the House floor urging colleagues to reject electors from Arizona and the other six states that submitted fake certificates.
Before the House voted to reject Biggs’ arguments, hundreds of Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol, sparking a deadly riot.
Arizona Republicans had their thumb on the scale at every step: they hired a firm to conduct the Maricopa County audit because the personnel were connected to the Trumpian universe of election deniers; Giuliani planted a mole in the audit, a known election denier; this person received her directions from a Trump lawyer and TV anchor who was reporting on and raising money for an event she and her bosses were trying to influence.
And still, in the end … Biden received more votes and no fraud was found! Happily for democracy, these goobers make the Watergate burglars look like masterminds. (Read enough about the Arizona audit and you’ll stumble upon County Attorney Tom Liddy, son of Gordo.)