House committee seeks answers about Arizona audit in letter to Cyber Ninjas

PHOENIX – A Congressional oversight committee is seeking information from head Cyber Ninja Doug Logan about his firm’s role in the ongoing audit of last year’s Phoenix-area election.

“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,” says a letter sent to Logan on Wednesday and signed by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

After the introduction, the letter has three sections laying out committee concerns: Cyber Ninjas’ Lack of Election Audit Experience, Cyber Ninjas’ Sloppy and Insecure Audit Practices, and Embrace of Election Conspiracy Theories.

That’s followed by a list of documentation the committee wants Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, to provide by July 28.

The list includes items about company ownership, audit funding, training methods and connections to former President Donald Trump or his surrogates, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

The letter notes that the Committee on Oversight and Reform “is the principal oversight committee of the House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate ‘any matter’ at ‘any time’ under House Rule X.”

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, hired Florida-based Cyber Ninjas to lead several firms in the audit after winning a legal battle with the GOP-led Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over access to voting equipment and about 2.1 million ballots from the November 2020 general election.

The audit began April 23 and is still going, with results not expected until late July or August. Only two races that Democrats won — president and U.S. Senate – were tallied in the recount.

Maricopa County officials and others have questioned the methods, competence and motives of Cyber Ninjas — concerns that Congress is now looking into.

Republican officials already audited AZ's election and found it to be free and fair. So why is a dark-money funded, Trump-allied firm doing yet another audit? @RepMaloney & I are demanding answers. https://t.co/jwnMiZQg0K

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) July 14, 2021

The Board of Supervisors, which consists of four Republicans and one Democrat, previously authorized two audits by independent contractors who are certified by the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.

Those audits found no problems, but state Senate Republicans subpoenaed the county for access to the election materials at the urging of Trump supporters who refused to accept President Joe Biden’s narrow victory Maricopa County and statewide.

Fann selected Cyber Ninjas’ bid of just $150,000 to conduct an audit that will likely end up costing millions. Several private campaigns have been launched to raise funds in the name of the audit, but there is no public record of where the money is coming from.

Fann has said the aim of the process is to restore faith in the election system and find ways to improve Arizona’s voting laws, not to reverse the result of the election.

However, many Trump supporters see it as a step toward invalidating Biden’s victory and returning Trump to office.

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