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The Arizona Senate has spent $500,000 to block access to ‘audit’ public records

['Dillon Rosenblatt', 'More From Author', '- May']

Date: 2022-05

The Arizona Senate has spent more than $500,000 in taxpayer money to fight the release of public records related to the partisan election review it conducted in 2021.

Senate Republicans hired Phoenix-based law firm Statecraft to represent it on matters related to the so-called “audit” of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, including lawsuits centered on public records. The Senate has refused to release thousands of documents to watchdog organizations and journalists, including the Arizona Mirror, that have sought access to the materials under Arizona’s public records law.

In each instance, courts have roundly rejected the Senate’s claims that the records aren’t public because they were created or retained by the contractors the Senate hired to do the election review. Instead, the courts have said that the Senate’s position would render the public records law meaningless.

“Allowing the legislature to disregard the clear mandate of the (public records law) would undermine the integrity of the legislative process and discourage transparency,” which would run counter to the purpose of Arizona’s public records law, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled.

Senate President Karen Fann appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, which declined to take it up, leaving the appellate court ruling in place.

According to the latest invoices, Statecraft has now billed Fann and the Senate roughly $502,000 since April 2021, when the first court hearing happened to fight a public records request. (Payments to Statecraft go as far back as December 2020 over separate legal matters.)

More than a year later, thousands of documents were turned over — but only those that were in the Senate’s possession. Cyber Ninjas, the now-defunct firm that Fann hired to oversee the election review, has not turned over any records, even in the face of $50,000 daily fines for failing to do so. The company and its CEO, Doug Logan, continue to fight turning over documents to the point a judge named Logan and his wife personally responsible for the records moving forward, even as the tally for the fines has risen to $4.1 million.

Nearly every claim that Fann’s so-called audit team made about the 2020 general election was either inaccurate, misleading or patently false. The “audit” was spurred by President Donald Trump’s campaign in order to overturn the results, and was overseen by people with no election experience who helped form many of the bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The most recent invoice requested $10,824 for the entire month of March. Attorneys at Statecraft are paid $350 per hour.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and even Cyber Ninjas’ report in September reaffirmed Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

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