Arizona fake electors, Cyber Ninjas' 'audit' under investigation by state attorney general
Arizona's fake electors and the Arizona Senate's hand recount of 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots are under investigation by the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
Investigators are looking at a range of Republican-led efforts to overturn results of the 2020 election, including the so-called "audit," which was the only privately run recount of ballots in America, The Arizona Republic has learned.
The state was a nexus of coordinated attempts to challenge 2020 election results, with events here serving as a template for several swing states where former President Donald Trump lost. Arizona saw a campaign by Trump's legal team to pressure state lawmakers not to certify results; two slates of fake electors certifying that Trump carried the state; and the "audit," which sowed doubts in the voting process.
The "audit," led by Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, was managed, financed and organized by allies of Trump. It so far has cost Arizona taxpayers more than $5 million without delivering any definitive results.
Logan was involved in a partisan plot to overturn the 2020 election when then-Senate President Karen Fann hired him, documents obtained through a public records lawsuit by The Republic show.
Logan's own text messages show he was unable to quantify the results of his hand count, and privately admitted that he couldn't make sense of the vote tallies that hundreds of volunteers spent two months recording at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
The Attorney General's Office confirmed Tuesday it had launched a criminal investigation into GOP efforts, but spokesperson Richie Taylor said he could not discuss the scope of the inquiry or any specific details.
He said he could not answer questions about the "audit," Logan or Cyber Ninjas.
Logan did not respond to an interview request.
Arizona prosecutors since May have sought interviews with Trump electors, documents from election officials and evidence collected by the U.S. Department of Justice and prosecutors in other states who are mounting their own election interference investigations, The Washington Post first reported on July 13.
Arizona's investigation continues as the Justice Department ramps up its probe of some Republicans in seven states who submitted falsified documents claiming to be the rightful electors where Democrat Joe Biden actually won in the November 2020 election.
Michigan's attorney general on Tuesday announced felony charges against a group of 16 fake electors, marking the first criminal case to be brought in any state related to the plan.
Fake electors in spotlight in multiple investigations
The Michigan Republicans are accused of trying to use a phony certificate to award the state's Electoral College votes to Trump despite his 154,188-vote loss to Biden. Each person was charged with eight forgery-related counts.
While federal prosecutors in Nevada and state authorities in Georgia have offered immunity deals to those states' fake electors, it's unclear if the same is true of any of Arizona's fake electors. Some of them were subpoenaed a year ago after questions from the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
State Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, who was among several Arizona GOP representatives who signed the false documents, denied knowing anything about an investigation during a June phone interview.
He brushed off questions about investigations. Asked if he had sought legal counsel, Kern said he didn't need a lawyer. Only people who have done something wrong or had something to hide would need to hire a lawyer, he said.
None of the other Arizona fake electors would comment when contacted by The Arizona Republic in June. State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, retreated to a members-only stairwell at the Capitol without addressing the issue.
Emails obtained by The New York Times in 2022 showed Arizona lawyer Jack Wilenchik, who was working with the state's fake electors, discussed the plan with a Trump adviser, which he called wild and inventive.
“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to (Vice President Mike) Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Wilenchik wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email.
Wilenchik did not respond to an interview request.
Biden beat Trump by 10,457 votes in Arizona, or 0.3 percent of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast.
Arizona had two different groups of fake GOP electors.
One group included then-state party Chair Kelli Ward, Kern and Hoffman, and turned the signing into a social media event, promoting it on Twitter. The other group was made up of lesser-known Trump loyalists who called themselves “The Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona.”
The fake electors scheme was the brainchild of John Eastman, a lawyer on Trump's legal team who proposed the competing slates could create confusion and give Vice President Mike Pence the justification needed to toss out votes from all seven states.
Trump could then be declared the winner, or short of that, the certification of election results could be delayed long enough to give states time to pursue allegations of fraud. Pence, however, refused to go along.
Eastman is now facing a disbarment trial. The State Bar Court of California has charged him with 11 disciplinary counts for his efforts to keep Trump in office. Bar lawyers allege Eastman knew his advice was not supported by law and his purpose was to prevent Biden from becoming president.
Eastman has countered that he was engaged in legitimate legal discussions about the powers of the office of the vice president rather than trying to overturn the election.
Arizona's fake electors have long held that the effort was nothing more than a backup plan in case any of Trump’s legal challenges to his loss in Arizona were successful, to ensure the state had some electors, even though the documentation they submitted did not say as much.
Prominent former prosecutor seeks criminal probe of Cyber Ninjas
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley in June called for state and county authorities to investigate Logan for potential criminal charges.
Romley, a Republican, said this is not a partisan issue. He said Logan has defied court orders to turn over thousands of "audit" records.
Logan is not only in contempt of court, he also appears to be violating a state law that makes withholding public records a Class 6 felony, Romley said.
Romley said records Logan has so far released also suggest Cyber Ninjas might have perpetrated fraud by taking millions for an election review that appeared to have a predetermined outcome and could not be completed.
Logan has turned over several thousand text messages in response to The Republic's public records lawsuit, but he has withheld thousands more.
A judge in January 2022 fined Cyber Ninjas $50,000 a day until the company complied with the order to turn over all audit-related material. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the daily fine in July 2022, rejecting Logan's request to rescind it. The fines to the company now total millions of dollars.
An independent review by a team of data analysts in June found Logan improperly redacted thousands of texts and eliminated others. The review identified missing messages, long gaps in communications and conversations that dropped in midstream.
Senate Republicans in 2021 announced they would commission a hand count of every ballot cast in Maricopa County to address claims the election had been stolen from Trump. The Senate subpoenaed the ballots and other election material from the county.
Fann tapped Logan to lead the audit after privately communicating with retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, an ardent Trump supporter who met with the former president. Although neither Logan nor his company had election auditing experience, Fann at the time said he was "well qualified" and "well experienced."
The ballot review was supposed to take a few weeks and cost taxpayers $150,000. It ultimately took about two months and so far has cost Arizona more than $5 million.
While Logan confirmed Biden's victory in Arizona, his report to the Senate focused on so-called anomalies that raised doubts about the process. It allowed Trump allies to insist the vote was compromised, instilling distrust in voting machines and encouraging partisan calls for paper ballot tabulations, hand recounts and "audits."
Arizona's two slates of fake electors
This is the Arizona Republican slate of electors. These individuals all were listed as electors on the 2020 ballot:
- Tyler Bowyer, an executive with Turning Point USA and a committeeman for the Republican National Committee.
- Nancy Cottle, who chaired the Arizona Trump electors.
- State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek.
- Then-state Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale.
- Jim Lamon, a failed U.S. Senate candidate.
- Robert Montgomery of the Cochise County Republican Committee.
- Samuel Moorhead of the Gila County Republican Party.
- Loraine Pellegrino, the secretary of the Arizona Trump electors.
- Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party.
- Kelli Ward, the state GOP chair at the time,
- Michael Ward, Kelli Ward's husband and a GOP activist.
The Sovereign Citizens slate
- Federico Buck, a real estate professional.
- Cynthia Franco.
- Sarai Franco.
- Stewart A. Hogue.
- Jamie Hunsaker, a Trump enthusiast.
- Carrie Lundell.
- Christeen Taryn Moser.
- Danjee J. Moser.
- Jessica Panell.
- Donald Paul Schween, who was active in Republican Party politics.
- Peter Wang.