Maricopa County Refuses Arizona Senate Subpoena; Arizona Senate Refuses Court Order

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The Arizona Mirror reports on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisor’s response to Senator Karen Fann’s demands for more for the Arizona Senate’s never-ending GQP sham “fraudit” by QAnon conspiracy theorist Doug Logan aka Cyber Ninjas: “Go pound sand.” Supervisors, Dominion won’t comply with new Senate subpoenas:

The Maricopa County will not comply with the latest subpoena from Senate President Karen Fann for routers and other materials for her election review, essentially challenging her to enforce it with the knowledge that she doesn’t have the votes to hold the Board of Supervisors in contempt.

Dominion Voting Systems, which provides the county’s ballot tabulation machines, also refused to comply with a subpoena that Fann issued demanding administrative passwords for the devices the company leased to Maricopa County for the 2020 election, asserting that the company is not subject to the Senate’s subpoena authority.

Fann and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen ordered the supervisors and representatives of Dominion to appear at the Senate at 1 p.m. Monday to comply with their subpoenas. No one showed up on their behalf. Instead, they informed Fann in a letter that they wouldn’t comply.

Liddy noted that the county has already provided some of the materials Fann sought for her so-called audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County in response to a previous subpoena. For example, the county recorder’s office already provided digital images of the envelopes used to return early ballots, which contain the affidavits that voters sign to affirm their identities. Other items, such as the passwords that provide administrative access to the ballot tabulation machines, have never been in the county’s possession, Liddy wrote in his letter.

As for the routers and their associated digital logs, the county simply refused to hand them over, echoing the same arguments the supervisors have made to the Senate for months. County officials say the routers, which are used by various county agencies and departments, contain sensitive, confidential information about Maricopa County residents that would be potentially compromised if turned over to the Senate or its election review team. Removing the routers would also “severely disrupt” county operations and cost millions of dollars, Liddy wrote.

The Senate and its audit team have said they want the routers to ensure that the county’s ballot tabulation machines weren’t connected to the internet and that they weren’t sending or receiving information during the election. Liddy explained that a forensic audit conducted by two companies accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission already confirmed that the machines were never connected to the internet. Liddy said other documents and data the county provided to the Senate also confirms that.

“Anyone with sufficient knowledge and understanding of elections is able to confirm, through a review of these logs or through an inspection of the tabulators, that the equipment was not connected to the internet and had no wifi devices installed,” Liddy wrote.

Liddy said the county won’t provide the logs for the same security reasons it won’t turn over the routers.

After the board met in executive session for about four hours, Vice Chairman Bill Gates told reporters that the new subpoenas were nothing more than “political theater” timed to coincide with former President Donald Trump’s July 24 speech in Phoenix, when he aired false claims that the election in Arizona was rigged against him and repeatedly called on Republican state senators to obtain the disputed routers.

The point of the subpoenas, Gates alleged, is to distract from the mounting problems facing the audit. Just in the past two weeks, Logan and another audit leader made a number of false and unsubstantiated claims in a briefing to Fann and Petersen, and audit liaison Ken Bennett — a former Arizona secretary of state — was banned from the audit site at the state fairgrounds in Phoenix and announced his resignation from the audit team, only to agree to return shortly afterward.

“This is political theater. This is trying to get the attention off of them and the fact that their whole endeavor is crumbling, and to instead point to Maricopa County and say that we’re the problem,” Gates said. “We’re not the problem. It’s people focused on conspiracy theories that’s the problem.”

Gates didn’t question Fann’s legal authority to subpoena the items so much as he questioned how she can force the county to comply. In February, Fann sought to hold Gates and the other county supervisors in contempt, but the effort failed on a 15-15 vote after Sen. Paul Boyer broke ranks with his fellow Republicans and voted against it. Since then, Republican Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita has joined Boyer in publicly criticizing the audit, which she calls “botched.”

Boyer defended the county and Dominion’s refusal to comply with the subpoenas, saying they’re “100% in the right.” He added he’d still oppose any attempt to hold them in contempt.

“I’d be a ‘hell no,’” he said.

Even if Fann had 16 votes for a contempt resolution — Republicans have only a one-vote majority in the Senate — there would be no way to introduce or vote on it because the Senate is not in session and won’t return to the Capitol until January.

Gates also said that, even though Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason ruled that the Senate had the legal authority to subpoena election materials from the county, he never actually ordered the supervisors to comply, leaving enforcement instead to the Senate. Gates indicated that if the two sides end up back in court any time in the near future, it will have to be Fann who initiates it.

Dominion told Fann in a letter Monday that her subpoena against the company was invalid and even unconstitutional. Eric Spencer, a Phoenix attorney representing the company, said the request violates Dominion’s due process rights under both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions because the Senate seeks to deprive the company of its property rights, and that the subpoena violates Dominion’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, among other arguments.

Furthermore, Spencer wrote, the subpoena is “untethered to any valid legislative purpose,” and he alleged that it is being “used as a tool of harassment.” Spencer noted that the audit team has already returned the tabulation machines to the county, making the Senate’s request for passwords to those machines pointless.

Spencer also objected, as the company has before, to the notion that Dominion should turn over sensitive information to Cyber Ninjas, the company leading Fann’s self-styled audit. The company’s CEO, Doug Logan, was an active promoter of conspiracy theories and false fraud claims about the election. Logan, who designed the election review’s scope and procedures, and other subcontractors have little to no background in elections, as well.

“Releasing Dominion’s intellectual property to an unaccredited, biased, and plainly unreliable actor such as Cyber Ninjas would be reckless, causing irreparable damage to the commercial interests of the company and the election security interests of the country. No company should be compelled to participate in such an irresponsible act,” Spencer wrote.

The MAGA/QAnon white supremacist insurrectionist state legislators went predictably insane:

GOP senators and other prominent Republicans demanded that the county and Dominion be brought to heel for refusing to comply with the subpoenas.

“I would have arrested all of these people already if I had the power to do so. I vote to arrest. Arrest and put them in solitary,” Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, wrote on Twitter, referring to Senate contempt resolution’s authorization to have the supervisors arrested.

There is a problem with this request. Doh!

Rep. Leo Biasiucci, the House majority whip, tweeted, “The complete disrespect to the Arizona Senate and to the Arizona Voters is disturbing. It’s time people are held accountable for this continued obstruction.”

And Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, wrote that the county and Dominion “must be held accountable.”

The other shoe dropped today, er, the shoe is on the other foot today?

The Arizona Mirror continues, Judge rejects Senate’s immunity claim, orders release of ‘audit’ records:

A Maricopa County judge ordered the Arizona Senate to immediately turn over records related to the ongoing review of the 2020 election, which Senate President Karen Fann will appeal.

The order follows Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp’s recent finding that a bevy of documents requested by the liberal nonprofit organization American Oversight are public records, regardless of whether the Senate has ever actually had physical possession of them. The Senate argued that documents held by audit contractors aren’t public records, which Kemp adamantly rejected.

Kemp reiterated his rejection of that claim on Tuesday, writing that it doesn’t matter whether Fann, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen or others in the Senate have never even seen the documents, as they claim. If the Senate does not possess the records, Kemp said state public records law obligates her to demand them from Cyber Ninjas, the company she hired to lead the self-styled audit, and its subcontractors.

“Willful blindness does not relieve Senate Defendants from their duties and obligations under the (public records law),” Kemp wrote on Monday.

American Oversight filed suit in May after Fann denied the group’s requests for a number of records, including internal communications between audit team employees and contractors, contracts between Cyber Ninjas and its various subcontractors, records showing who was paying for the audit, agreements with outside funders, and all invoices or other records showing payments to vendors and subcontractors.

Cyber Ninjas has since released a list of outside groups that have funded the audit, revealing that $5.7 million came from a collection of organizations supportive of former President Donald Trump that have promoted false claims that the election was rigged against him and, in some cases, participated in efforts to overturn election results in states won by President Joe Biden.

Following Kemp’s ruling in July, in which he rejected the Senate’s request to dismiss the case, the Senate’s legal counsel said they would appeal any order mandating that Fann hand over the records to American Oversight.

Wait for it …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Langhofer said the appeal will focus on two arguments: that state law requires a document to be in the physical custody of a public body for it to be considered a public record, and that the Senate is shielded from the request by a provision of the Arizona Constitution providing immunity to legislative officers performing official duties.

Kemp rejected both arguments in his rulings on the matter.

In his July ruling, Kemp ruled that because the audit is a legislative function, “all documents with a substantial nexus to the audit activities are public records,” regardless of whether the Senate possesses them. And he said legislative immunity under the Arizona Constitution applies only to “words spoken in debate,” and shields them from personal liability for official legislative acts.

The Senate’s interpretation of legislative immunity would render Arizona public records law “meaningless and unenforceable as to any legislator at any time under any circumstances,” Kemp wrote in his ruling Monday.

Langhofer needs to be disbarred.





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4 thoughts on “Maricopa County Refuses Arizona Senate Subpoena; Arizona Senate Refuses Court Order”

  1. UPDATE: The Arizona Republic reports that Republicans in the Arizona Senate are still trying to keep what they said would be a transparent audit secret from public disclosure, because it would reveal their partisan audit is in fact a GQP sham “fraudit.”

    “Arizona audit: Senate continues fight to keep Cyber Ninjas’ records secret”, https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2021/08/05/arizona-senate-appeals-court-order-releasing-cyber-ninjas-records-election-audit/5485920001/

    Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and other Republicans in her caucus are fighting to keep secret the records of the 2020 election audit they are directing despite a judge’s order that they “immediately” hand over all communications related to the effort.

    Fann, R-Prescott, Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and the Arizona Senate filed a petition in the Arizona Court of Appeals on Wednesday in hopes of overturning the order.

    The case initially was brought by the non-profit, American Oversight.

    The Arizona Republic also sued the Senate for communications related to the audit, including messages between the Senate and Cyber Ninjas. That separate lawsuit also named Cyber Ninjas as defendants.

    Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp on Monday issued a brief order directing Fann and the Senate to provide the records that were requested under Arizona law.

    Kemp previously decided that “any and all” records with a “substantial nexus” to the audit are public records, including all communications related to planning the audit, policies and procedures of the audit and all records disclosing who is paying for the audit and how much is being spent.

  2. Jeremy Stahl at Slate reports, “The Arizona Audit Is Getting Very Close to Being Hauled in Front of Congress”, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/arizona-audit-congress-subpoena-jamie-raskin.html

    House Oversight Committee chairwoman Carolyn Maloney confirmed that the committee would escalate the matter if Cyber Ninjas does not comply with its records request, which would likely mean congressional subpoenas into every aspect of the Arizona audit.

    “Partisan audits funded by dark money groups undermine Americans’ confidence in elections,” Maloney said in a statement sent to me on Wednesday, referring to the handful of Trump-linked 501(c)(3) entities that have poured more than $5.7 million into the audit effort. “Cyber Ninjas must provide complete transparency over its questionable activities and sources of funding, and answer Congress’s questions without further delay. If it does not, we will use all tools available to ensure we get the answers we need to protect the integrity of federal elections.”

    The Oversight Committee has requested any and all documentation about every minute detail of the Maricopa County audit, including information on its bizarre vote-counting procedures, complete data about its funders, training materials, any documented complaints about the audit, details around the audit’s hunt for bamboo-laced paper, and any communications auditors had with former President Donald Trump or anyone in his orbit, including Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, or former Trump administration officials.

  3. Fann and Borrelli have gotten themselves in muck up their chins and don’t know how to get out, except to blame everyone else. There is no positive end game for them. Its totally discredited.

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