Arizona Senate And the Cyber Ninjas Are Brazenly Defying Court Orders

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Our blog troll, Troll Boy aka Rep. John Kavanagh, recently commented on Maricopa County resisting the Arizona Senate’s second subpoena for Maricopa County’s routers and splunk logs as part of the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit” being conducted by a QAnon conspiracy theorist, Doug Logan aka Cyber Ninjas:

The attorney general is fulfilling the oath of office that he took to uphold Arizona state law. Arizona law states that if I legislator believes that a county or municipal governing body has broken the law, the legislator can file a 1487 complaint that requires the Attorney General to decide whether or not state law was broken and if the Attorney General decides that’ it was broken, to tell the governing body to rescind the illegal act or to forfeit state shared revenue. The Maricopa county supervisors were served with a subpoena that the court has upheld and that they have not complied with. The supervisors have broken the law.

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Not complying with a subpoena is a violation of state law.

The subpoena that was upheld by the court in January was for ballots and ballot related logs, which Maricopa County complied with after the Superior Court incorrectly endorsed this conspiratorial fishing expedition by MAGA/QAnon conspiracy theorists on the false premise that the Arizona Senate might be conducting a legitimate legislative function of oversight. The Judge has since been proven wrong in spades after his unfortunate decision, and he should be deeply ashamed of his naïveté and regret his decision.

The superseding reissued subpoena for routers and splunk logs, issued by the Arizona Senate in August, has not been reviewed by the court. Any recipient of a subpoena has a due process right to challenge the validity of a subpoena in court.

The problem the Arizona Senate has is: (1) the legislature is not in session, and (2) even so, Republicans do not have the votes to enforce the Senate subpoena. Sen. Paul Boyer: ’embarrassing’ Arizona recount ‘makes us look like idiots’, and Sen. Michelle Ugenti Rita: “I supported the audit, but I do not support the Trump audit any longer.” “Sadly, it’s now become clear that the audit has been botched. The total lack of competence by @FannKfann over the last 5 months has deprived the voters of Arizona a comprehensive accounting of the 2020 election.” Arizona GOP state senator who backed the election audit withdrew her support, attacking the process as botched.

Nevertheless, Maricopa County has reached a settlement of its dispute with the Arizona Senate. It is the lawless Arizona Senate and its agent, Cyber Ninjas, which is defying a lawful court order (and a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court) to turn over audit related documents subject to a public records request. To quote Not complying with a lawful order of the court is a violation of state law. The Arizona Senate has unclean hands and should not be heard to complain about Maricopa County.

By the way, that whole 1487 complaint process enacted by authoritarian Republican legislators to enforce their delusions of grandeur and abuses of power against local government authorities is the very first law that a Democratic legislature and governor need to repeal upon taking office.

The Arizona Mirror reports, Maricopa County, Senate reach agreement to end subpoena fight over routers:

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors reached an agreement with the Senate over subpoenas issued for routers and digital logs, heading off a fight in the Arizona Supreme Court that could have potentially cost the county hundreds of millions of dollars.

The agreement reached Friday will allow the county to keep its routers out of the hands of the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, which Senate President Karen Fann hired to conduct an “audit” of the county’s 2020 election results, and instead appoints a special master to answer any questions the Senate has related to the routers and related data.

Note: MAGA/QAnon Republicans are already misrepresenting this settlement, further demonstrating their bad faith.

Both sides agreed to hire former Republican Congressman John Shadegg [a certifiable nut, you have got to be kidding me], who will hire between one and three computer technology experts to help him respond to the Senate’s questions.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors also agreed to retract a claim made by the county against the Senate for $2.8 million to replace ballot tabulation machines it’s decommissioning because Fann’s subcontractors, who aren’t accredited to examine such voting equipment, accessed them. [Another bad move, the Arizona Senate specifically agreed to indemnify the county for any harm resulting from the GQP sham “fraudit.”]

“Is it perfect? Probably not,” [an understatement] Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers said to the press about the agreement. “But it gets us a step in the right direction.”

Fann and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen subpoenaed the county’s routers, splunk logs and a host of other materials in January for their review of the 2020 general election in Maricopa County. While the county provided nearly 2.1 million ballots, hundreds of ballot tabulation machines and other materials, they withheld the routers and Splunk logs. The supervisors have argued that taking the routers offline would be expensive, would hinder county operations and could jeopardize law enforcement operations and confidential information.

The supervisors again refused to turn over the routers in August, after Fann and Petersen reissued their subpoenas. The audit team said it wanted the routers to determine whether the Elections Department’s tabulation machines were connected to the internet, though the machines themselves would not contain any evidence of online connections. An audit the supervisors commissioned earlier in the year showed that the machines weren’t connected to the internet, and that they didn’t send or receive any digital information during the election.

The special master will have the sole authority to hire the team that will answer the Senate’s questions. The appointment of the special master and the agreement also means that the county has complied with the subpoena for passwords and security tokens, which the county did not possess to begin with as they were in the possession of Dominion Voting Systems, the vendor that provides the county’s voting machines.

The agreement also states that the special master’s scope of work will be limited to the routers and Splunk logs in relation to the November 3, 2020 general election and for the time period between October 7, 2020 to November 20, 2020.

A Splunk log refers to a set of data created by software known as Splunk that creates logs of events and tasks that occur over a network in order to monitor security, troubleshoot issues or detect threats.

The special master and his team will not have internet connectivity when conducting searches of the county computer systems, and no copies will be made of any information they observe or review during the course of their work.

The county will also pay for any and all costs for employing the special master and his staff for their work.

It is more accurate to say that Maricopa County taxpayers have been stuck with the bill for this MAGA/QAnon conspiracy fishing expedition, courtesy of the lawless Arizona Senate.

If the supervisors had chosen to continue defying the subpoena, that decision could have had a substantial financial cost to the county.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich opined that the Board of Supervisors were violating state law by refusing to comply with the subpoenas. He issued the opinion under a 2016 law, Senate Bill 1487, which permits any member of the legislature to seek a ruling from the attorney general on whether an action by a city or town violates state law or the Arizona Constitution. [QAnon conspiracy cultist] Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, filed a complaint against the supervisors in August after they announced that they wouldn’t comply with the latest Senate subpoena.

Here’s what Troll Boy left out of his disingenuous comment:

The supervisors could have appealed Brnovich’s conclusion to the Arizona Supreme Court. [Due process.] If the [Ducey-packed] Supreme Court sided with Brnovich and the county still refused to comply, it would have lost an estimated $676 in shared tax revenue from the state, which would account for about 42% of the county’s budget for the current fiscal year. During the last fiscal year, the county received more than $700 million in shared revenue.

So Troll Boy is good with destroying the county’s finances, and essential government services it pays for like police, fire and emergency responders, in pursuit of this GQP sham “fraudit” chasing conspiracy theories down the QAnon rabbit hole. This is how he “Backs the Blue”? Police and Fire Unions should withdraw their campaign contributions from this dangerous ideologue.

Simply to appeal, the county would have had to post a bond equal to the past six months’ worth of shared revenue payments from the state, which the county estimates could be about $350 million. If the court ruled in the county’s favor, or if it agreed with Brnovich and the county subsequently complied with the subpoena, it would have gotten the money back.

Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone railed against the agreement saying it did not “represent a healthy outcome.” [He is correct.]

“The failed leadership and agenda based politics have not promoted transparency, they have only deteriorated the democratic process,” Penzone said in a statement. “It sets a precedent that will cause us to pay dearly due to political agendas and a lack of courage and conviction by a few.”

Penzone had threatened to go to court if the supervisors agreed to hand over the routers. Under the agreement, Shadegg and his team will not disclose any non-public information related to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, other law enforcement agencies or the Maricopa County Superior Court.

* * *

“We aren’t dealing with rational people here, we really aren’t,” Supervisor Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat on the board, said before the vote on the agreement. “We are dealing with bullies.”

Gallardo was the sole vote against the agreement, saying that the board will be back in the same place down the road.

“I think that is a misguided policy,” Gallardo said. “We’re not turning over the routers today, but that doesn’t mean there will not be another chance at the apple.”

Audit team leader Doug Logan, the CEO Cyber Ninjas, will present his long-delayed report from his election review to the Senate on Sept. 24.

“We are certainly not giving up our right to take action when the audit report is released next week,” Sellers said before voting yes on the agreement Friday.

Next, the Arizona Mirror reports, Cyber Ninjas, flouting court order, refuse to turn over public records to the Senate:

Cyber Ninjas won’t hand over all of the documents that Senate President Karen Fann requested from the review it conducted of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, despite an order by the Arizona Court of Appeals that all such records be made public [upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court.]

Attorney Jack Wilenchik [a “Stop The Steal” attorney facing a state bar complaint] who represents the Florida-based company that led the election review that Fann ordered, argued to the Senate’s lawyer that the staffing records and internal communications are not public records, and said Cyber Ninjas will not turn them over as the Senate president requested. [As the court ordered.]

The company will provide “full financial statements” about the audit, either as part of the report that will become public on Sept. 24, or shortly thereafter, Wilenchik wrote in an email to Senate attorney Kory Langhofer on Friday. And it will provide its communications with the Senate, which have not been made public, and any updated policies and procedures its subcontractors have used during the audit.

But staffing records, as well as internal communications and communications with subcontractors, are private records, Wilenchik wrote. For example, Wilenchik said it would not be “practical, workable, fair or legal” for the company to be forced to turn over internal company emails about staffing and Cyber Ninjas’ performance of its contract with the Senate.

“If the case were otherwise, then it would set an extremely unsettling precedent for all government contractors in this state and make it impossible for the State to do business,” Wilenchik wrote.

What is Doug Logan aka Cyber Ninjas so desperately trying to hide from the public?

Furthermore, Wilenchik said Fann’s request for all records that have “a substantial nexus to the audit” — a phrase that the Arizona Court of Appeals used to describe documents that the Senate must obtain and publicly release under the state’s public records law — is vague and difficult to define.

Fann’s request for “all records that are reasonably necessary or appropriate to maintain an accurate knowledge” of the audit is also undefined, Wilenchik wrote, but Cyber Ninjas believes the Senate already has all the records it needs. He noted that the Senate had multiple liaisons who observed audit operations on a daily basis, and that election review activities were live-streamed on the internet at all times.

“I also emphasize that, while CNI intends to produce documents out of goodwill and its commitment to transparency, by sending this communication CNI does not concede the existence or scope of any involuntary legal obligation to do so,” Wilenchik wrote in the email, referring to Cyber Ninjas, Inc.

Cyber Ninjas likely won’t have the final say on whether its obligation to turn over records is involuntary. The Court of Appeals ruled that the Senate must acquire and make public all documents with a “substantial nexus” to the audit, regardless of whether those documents are held exclusively by private contractors. The contract that Cyber Ninjas signed with Fann in March requires the company to provide “information or documents” she requests for the purpose of settling legal claims.

Roopali Desai, an attorney representing American Oversight, the liberal nonprofit group that sued the Senate over the records, said it’s the Senate’s responsibility to obtain the documents from Cyber Ninjas.

“Our view is that the defendant in our case is the Senate. They are responsible for their contractors and subcontractors. They can and should and must get these documents. The public records law requires it. They have independent subpoena power. They have contractual rights. There’s lots of different ways that they can hold their subcontractors accountable,” Desai told the Arizona Mirror.

If Cyber Ninjas wants to continue the fight in court, it appears the company will be on its own and won’t have any assistance from the Senate, which led the legal battle against American Oversight for months. [I’m not buying it. They have been colluding together from the very beginning.]

In a letter to Wilenchik on Friday, Langhofer said Cyber Ninjas’ refusal to turn over some records jeopardizes the Senate’s ability to comply with the Court of Appeals order [ya think?], and any decision by the company not to comply with Fann’s request for documents would be “prejudicial to the legal interests of the Senate and its officers.”

“The Senate will not support or advance any legal claim, defense, or position espoused by CNI that has the effect of limiting or delaying CNI’s compliance with the Senate’s September 14 request,” Langhofer told Wilenchik.

Langhofer informed the judges in public records lawsuits brought by both American Oversight and the parent company of The Arizona Republic that “(t)he interests of the Senate and Cyber Ninjas have diverged on this issue.”

[T]he Senate’s fight over public records isn’t over either. The Senate has turned over tens of thousands of pages of documents in response to American Oversight’s lawsuit, but has withheld several thousand pages on grounds of legislative privilege. Desai filed a motion on Friday asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp to order the release of those documents.

Finally, Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic demonstrates the collusuion between the Arizona Senate and the MAGA/QAnon conspiracy cultists, and why this GQP sham “fraudit” lacks any credibility and should be dismissed by the public when the report is finally released this Friday. Well, well. Look who was spotted at the ‘reunion’ of Senate audit volunteers:

So nice to see that the Senate election audit crew held a “reunion” at a Chandler restaurant on Wednesday evening.

Senate President Karen Fann was there and looking chipper, despite having just lost her months’-long court battle to keep the public in the dark about the election audit. Alas (for her), that fight ended this week when the Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal to keep her auditors’ communications private.

Cyber Ninjas auditor Doug Logan was there, too. That was a surprise given that he missed yet another deadline to produce the audit this week and is now claiming he needs another 30 days before he can turn over emails, texts and other records that multiple judges have ruled are public records.

A Gateway Pundit “reporter” was there as well. That’s the far-right gossip rag that every couple of days publishes a new BOMBSHELL of the many ways in which Arizona’s election was stolen.

[K]en Bennett, the Senate’s liaison to the audit, didn’t attend, teling me, “I had a previous commitment.”  He’s been on the outs ever since he complained that auditors were keeping him in the dark.

But I spotted someone there from the We the People Az Alliance, the group that tried unsuccessfully to recall the Maricopa County supervisors[.]

As are posters like the one in the group picture, the one that says “America First”.

Naturally, Republican Sens. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff and Sonny Borelli of Lake Havasu City attended Wednesday’s “reunion” of audit volunteers. They are the two biggest conspiracy kooks in the Senate.

Borrelli and Rogers, of course, were there

I was so relieved to see that Borrelli hasn’t been “whacked” during his quest to uncover the Great Arizona Election Conspiracy. Who can forget his plea in March to a fellow member of the conspiracy crowd, asking her to give him the shredded ballots she and her fellow dumpster divers had just found outside Maricopa County Elections HQ?

Borrelli warned Staci Burk that she was in danger because she held the “domino” that would overturn the results of the presidential election.

“This is so high level, people, that they want this to go away …” he told Burk, in the recorded phone conversation. “They can try to silence you, you’re a private citizen. They can’t do anything to me. They can bully me all they want but they know they can’t take me out … (unless) they whack me or I have a suicide.”

Fortunately, Borrelli is still breathing. Unfortunately, the supposedly shredded ballots, like so much of the “evidence” of this “stolen” election, were never produced.

As for Sen. Rogers, isn’t it great that she could take time out of her nationwide tour, talking about Arizona’s phony election, to attend a reunion of volunteers who worked on an audit we were promised would be independent and unbiased?

“Here are some photos from the #AZAudit volunteer reunion last night. Wonderful time,” she tweeted, along with photos of the event. “For those saying the audit is ‘fake’ and ‘not real’ and ‘nothing is going to happen’ – take a look at these audit volunteers. Patriots, everyone of them – real people who did the Lord’s work.”

This was never about election integrity

The Lord’s work? Is that what we’re calling Donald Trump these days?

They are white Christian Nationalists who want to replace American democracy with theocratic dominionism – this is the threat from Arizona Republicans that the Arizona Republic never reports on.

If I sound snide and flippant and thoroughly dismissive of this audit and everyone associated with it, it’s because … well, I am.

Even before the votes were counted last year, we were being bombarded by conspiracy crybabies making increasingly bizarre claims about how the election was stolen.

It’s been like a 10-month game of Whack-A-Mole. Every time elections officials beat down a claim – that Sharpies stole votes, that a green button stole votes, that Dominion Voting Systems or the Asians or the evil Democrats stole votes – another one pops up.

Rather than acting like a leader and acknowledging that Trump just flat-out lost the election, Fann quickly proclaimed that an audit would be conducted to “restore voter confidence”.

Rather than examining who robbed Republicans of their confidence in our elections – the fraudsters and the grifters and the politically ambitious who shoot out flaming arrows of accusation that fizzle as soon they hit the air – Fann decided to examine a voting system that already had passed each and every test for accuracy and fairness required by state law.

“We must bring back confidence that the election results reported are how votes were legally cast,” Fann said in January. “The Senate’s forensic audit will bring accuracy and detail to the process, and with that restore integrity to the election process.”

Will it?

So much for independent and unbiased

On Wednesday evening, those who worked on this independent and unbiased audit got together for a reunion party.

There was Fann and there was her chief auditor, a guy who promoted claims that the election was stolen and stumbled his way through this audit, even appearing in a documentary about how the election was stolen. A documentary, by the way, that starred one of the chief financial backers of the audit.

There were the state senators who have claimed the election was stolen and the gossip reporter who has claimed the election was stolen.

[On Friday], we will (supposedly) get the results of the audit.

I, for one, just cannot imagine what it will say. [sarcasm.]

UPDATE:





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