Press Release from the House Committee On Oversight And Reform:
Chairs Maloney and Raskin Launch Investigation into Privately Run ‘Audit’ of Arizona 2020 Election Results
Washington, D.C. (July 14, 2021)— Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, sent a letter to Douglas Logan, Chief Executive Officer of Cyber Ninjas, requesting information on his companies’ role in the “audit” of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Arizona in the 2020 election.
“Americans’ right to vote is protected by the Constitution and is the cornerstone of our democratic system of government,” the Chairs wrote. “The Committee is seeking to determine whether the privately funded audit conducted by your company in Arizona protects the right to vote or is instead an effort to promote baseless conspiracy theories, undermine confidence in America’s elections, and reverse the result of a free and fair election for partisan gain.”
In April 2021, the Arizona State Senate launched an audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, despite clear, bipartisan consensus among county officials and outside experts that the election results were valid, that no significant fraud occurred, and that, following completion of a hand count and forensic audits by two nonpartisan election firms, the additional audit served no legitimate purpose.
Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cyber security firm, was chosen by Arizona State Senate Republicans to lead a team of private companies to conduct the audit, despite its lack of federal accreditation and election experience. Cyber Ninjas reportedly offered to conduct this audit for a fraction of the actual cost, and reports indicate that substantial outside funding has come from partisan dark money groups, including many connected to former President Trump’s advisors and allies.
Since beginning the audit work, Cyber Ninjas has been accused of engaging in mismanagement and insecure practices that jeopardized the integrity of ballots and voting machines and could lead to significant errors. One former election official, asked to observe the audit by the Arizona Secretary of State, stated, “In more than a decade working on elections, audits and recounts across the country, I’ve never seen one this mismanaged.”
Douglas Logan, CEO and Principal Consultant of Cyber Ninjas, has repeatedly embraced election conspiracy theories, alleging on social media that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against former President Donald Trump and working with associates of former President Trump in a lawsuit that sought to overturn the election result in Michigan.
The Committee’s letter requests documents and communications related to Cyber Ninja’s audit procedures, funding sources, and related issues by July 28, 2021.
Click here to read the letter.
Congress is now doing the job that our partisan hack Attorney General, Mark Brnovich, has entirely failed to do, as well as failing to investigate election interference by Donald Trump and his associates.
The Arizona Republic editorialized, Mark Brnovich will pay if he investigates GOP election intrusions. He should anyway:
The defense of democracy sometimes depends on the integrity of individuals who stand alone against forces that would tear it down.
Arizonans should never forget that in the chaos of the post 2020 presidential election a handful of public officials stood their ground separately against the awesome power of the president of the United States and against their own political party.
In so doing, they stopped an assault on the country from within.
GOP supervisors, to their credit, refused to cave
Reporting by The Arizona Republic’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Ron Hansen, and new records they obtained, show the lengths taken by then-President Donald Trump, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani and their goons in the Arizona Republican Party to try to reverse an election.
Clint Hickman, then chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, endured threats against himself, his wife and family as he rebuffed efforts by Trump and his lackeys to try to stop the counting of Arizona election results and further manipulate the vote.
Hickman is a lifelong West Valley Republican who had supported Trump and found himself barraged with messages from GOP state leadership to play ball and disrupt the vote counting and certification that would ultimately defeat Trump in the state of Arizona.
To his great credit, Hickman refused to cave.
Hickman’s fellow GOP supervisors Steve Chucri, Bill Gates and Jack Sellers were also approached individually with text messages or phone calls and also largely ignored them.
They will pay a price. So will Brnovich if he investigates
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey famously turned off his cellphone when Trump called him. Rather than talk to the president, Ducey certified state election results that helped defeat him.
For doing that, Ducey has faced continued insults from the ex-president. Trump has vowed to help defeat Ducey if he ever runs for U.S. Senate.
Like Ducey, Maricopa Country Recorder Stephen Richer has faced insults because he wouldn’t play ball with Republican Party leadership. He has routinely spoken up and denounced what happened during Trump’s assault on the Arizona vote and will almost certainly pay a political price in the end.
All of them will.
For Democrats, it’s the easiest thing to stand against Trump. There is no political downside to rebuking the guy from the other party who is so widely despised by your own.
For Republicans, there is pain. Trump voters are their voters.
And no doubt Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich will endure more of that pain if he decides to investigate these GOP intrusions into the Arizona election. Trump has already assailed Brnovich because he wouldn’t play trombone in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” parade.
If Biden had tried to interfere, would he look into it?
Brnovich is running for U.S. Senate next year and would no doubt draw the ire of Trump should he investigate this alleged misconduct.
As he makes that decision, one question should guide him: What if President Joe Biden and Democratic Party leaders had tried to interfere similarly in the state’s election – would he investigate?
If the answer is yes, and it most certainly would be, then Brnovich needs to probe every detail of this Republican-produced outrage.
As for the Republicans who tried to reverse an election that went against them – Trump, Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell, Ward – their actions are a blight on our democracy. They are indecent people who have betrayed the ideals of the country.
At one point in this saga, Kelli Ward accused the Republican supervisors of being “unAmerican.” She told GOP Supervisor Jack Sellers, “We have 4 years to support you guys politically and we will. You are what stands between integrity and theft.”
She got that right.
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