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Judge tells Cyber Ninjas they can't hide messages forever; former official calls for criminal probe [1]

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Date: 2023-07-07

In the last installment of “Cyber Ninjas turn over thousands of emails” we learned what many people suspected about the inexperienced company’s ability to recount 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County after the 2020 election: 1) they didn’t know WTF they were doing and their numbers were made up, and 2) Ninjas’ CEO Doug Logan had participated in other states’ Stop the Steal efforts, some perhaps illegal (he’s being investigated in Georgia), before he was hired for the Arizona project.

Two other outcomes that Cyber Ninjas didn’t go looking for are worth pointing out: 1) Biden picked up an additional 310 votes, and 2) there was no election fraud. That’s worth celebrating, after these pinhead Q boobs fed us shit sandwiches doused with MAGA sauce every day for six months, spent millions, and accomplished not a goddamn thing. Nichts, nein, nada, fucking no nothing.

Logan was running a scam in Arizona, and he should be investigated here as well as Georgia. We know about the crimes and coverups because last year the media took Cyber Ninjas to court for access to their communications. The audit was funded with taxpayer dollars, they argued, so the public has a right to know what took place on their dime (the $150,000 budget ballooned to $5 million). The judge agreed with the people and ordered emails, texts, and voicemails turned over.

CEO Logan balked at that order, so the judge slapped a $50,000 per day fine on Cyber Ninjas until the records were delivered. The Arizona Supreme Court upheld that ruling in July, making the total today more than $27 million. We all know that “everything Trump touches dies,” so it follows that Cyber Ninjas went bankrupt and shut down after the Arizona circus ended, making Logan responsible for the $27 million.

A month ago, though, Logan did turn over about 39,000 documents, which I wrote about, and that’s where we learned the operation was a partisan scam from the start. All the bullshit about “restoring election integrity” was just that—bullshit. Cyber Ninjas and Arizona Republicans intended to overturn the election by finding fraud, and if they couldn’t find it they’d invent it—probably something they should keep to themselves.

Before handing over the thousands of emails, texts, and voicemails, Logan reviewed and edited them, removing entire conversations (I envision Nixon hunkered down with his tapes, redacting whole days). According to tech experts who’ve examined the Cyber Ninjas’ releases, “Of 2,823 redacted messages, 2,159 involve people in the "Stop the Steal" movement.” That’s like Nixon erasing the Ehrlichman-Haldeman conversation immediately after the Watergate burglary (which he did). Back to 2024, that’s more than two thousand contacts with Q jerks, militia goobers, gun huggers, insurrectionists, and their partners in elected office—Gosar and Biggs perhaps? Just askin’ (hope others are too).

It gets worse: In addition to deleting important sections in the transcripts, Logan is still holding on to thousands of other texts and emails that he claims are privileged.

A review of Logan’s texts shows the messages Logan has fought hardest to keep private came after June 21, 2021, when the most critical moments of the election review unfolded: the end of the hand count; Logan’s struggle to add up the tick marks on tally sheets and his scattershot attempts to come up with an alternative way to quantify results; and his Sept. 24, 2021, report to the Senate. my emphasis

The messages Logan wants to keep hidden are after June 21, 2021, when shit and fan are about to meet up as it becomes clear to everyone that the “audit” is a clown car headed for the cliff. Ballots are escaping to Montana, Logan is starring in The Deep Rig conspiracy movie with other Q nutters, the Senate decides to do its own recount, lawsuits are flying everywhere, and no one knows WTF is going on—or how to even count. That’s just a smidgeon of what was going on, but by all means let’s keep those communications from the public. Logan appealed again to keep the post 6/21 emails private but this week the answer was the same:

More than a year after Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was ordered to make public every text and email, lawyers for the defunct cybersecurity firm asked the court to keep secret records dated after June 2, 2021. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bradley Astrowsky on Thursday said no. Yea! my cheer

There’s a parallel face-off with the Arizona Senate, which claims “legislative privilege” for about 1,000 emails and texts; the Arizona Supreme Court allowed this but they want more detail about the contents. So do we.

Senate President Karen Fann, I’d argue, hired Cyber Ninjas because CEO Doug Logan had connections to the Stop the Steal movement and Trump’s circle, not because he had ever audited an election (he hadn’t). Fann has never addressed this, other than to say she doesn’t remember. Reporter Laurie Roberts wonders if she was in on the scam from the beginning, or was she “simply dumb enough to be snookered into pushing our state down the rabbit hole”?

I’m guessing the communications Sen. Fann is protecting might shed light on that question. Once a respected legislator from rural Arizona who became only the second woman President of the Arizona Senate, Karen Fann was sucked into the MAGA black hole. She couldn’t defend the lies and obfuscation, appeared in over her head, and her reputation, like so many others, went kersplat! She did not run for office in 2022.

At least one Republican has had enough, and I would bet a buck that AG Kris Mayes is paying attention.

Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, a Republican, is calling for a criminal investigation into conduct by the former head of the Cyber Ninjas linked to a controversial, widely disparaged vote audit following the presidential election.

There is no friggin’ reason why this corrupt political stunt should not be investigated, now that we know it was another MAGA grift from the get-go. Surely somebody is responsible for the lies, fraud, and waste that produced nothing of value. That somebody should get a lawyer.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/7/2179862/-Judge-tells-Cyber-Ninjas-they-can-t-hide-messages-forever-former-official-calls-for-criminal-probe

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