Cyber Ninjas CEO declines US House request to testify at Arizona audit hearing
Oct 6, 2021, 10:00 AM | Updated: 2:31 pm
PHOENIX – The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold a hearing Thursday about Arizona’s partisan election review, but a key figure declined an invitation to testify.
Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor hired by state Senate Republican leaders for the divisive review of Maricopa County’s 2020 election, told the oversight committee this week he wouldn’t appear at the hearing. He was invited in a letter dated Sept. 23.
“Unfortunately, less than 36 hours before the hearing, Mr. Logan informed the committee that he is refusing to appear,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, the oversight committee’s chairwoman, told KTAR News 92.3 FM in a statement Wednesday.
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“Clearly, Mr. Logan doesn’t want to answer tough questions under oath about the highly questionable, partisan audit that his company led.”
The hearing, titled “Assessing the Election ‘Audit’ in Arizona and Threats to American Democracy,” starts at 7 a.m. Arizona time and will be livestreamed. The committee said in a press release the purpose is “to assess the election ‘audit’ in Maricopa County, Arizona, conducted by Cyber Ninjas, Inc., and how this and similar audits undermine public confidence in elections and threaten our democracy.”
The witness list had five names other than Logan. The list originally included Shiva Ayyadurai, a member of the audit team that released its findings Sept. 24. However, the committee told KTAR News that Ayyadurai wasn’t going to testify and that Ken Bennett, audit liaison for the Arizona Senate, was invited instead.
Also set to testify are two Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who opposed the state Senate’s review, Chairman Jack Sellers and Vice Chairman Bill Gates.
“I am looking forward to testimony from Republican officials from Arizona who refused to accept the Big Lie and are willing to speak out about the dangers of this partisan audit,” Maloney said.
“The committee will continue to press for answers in order to prevent future attacks on our democracy.”
David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, round out the list.
The oversight committee has two members from Arizona, Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs.
On July 14, the committee sent Logan a letter requesting information about Cyber Ninjas’ role in the review process and how it was being funded.
That letter noted that the committee “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.”
