Pro-Trump firm behind Arizona ‘audit’ announces it’s shutting down

A pro-Trump firm that carried out an audit of 2020 Presidential Election ballots in Arizona is shutting down after threats of fines over its allegedly error-strewn recount.

Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, which was launched in 2013, has fired all of its employees, which the company’s LinkedIn page said was between two and 10.  

‘Cyber Ninjas is shutting down. All employees have been let go,’ Rod Thomson, the company’s representative, said Thursday. 

This comes after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said he would levy a $50,000 fine for each day Cyber Ninjas refused to hand over documents relating to the audit, which it is claimed contains at least 80 misleading or false claims. 

A local newspaper, the Arizona Republic, filed a public records request, with Cyber Ninja failing to comply with its legal duty to do so, resulting in the threat of the $350,000-a-week fines. 

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Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan prior to the Arizona Senate Republicans hearing review of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix

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Contractors working for Cyber Ninjas, who was hired by the Arizona State Senate, examine and recount ballots from the 2020 general election at Veterans Memorial Coliseum on May 1, 2021 in Phoenix

Jack Wilenchik, a lawyer for Cyber Ninjas, has not yet responded to media requests for comment.

The report from election officials in Maricopa includes a record of nearly 80 misleading or false claims made by Cyber Ninjas in their audit.    

‘Truth is truth. Numbers are numbers,’ Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said at the time.

Those same Republicans had hired Cyber Ninjas to do the review of ballots in Maricopa, the state’s largest county in terms of population. 

The $6million, Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona‘s largest county officially ended in September and found no proof that the Arizona election was stolen from Donald Trump. 

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The Maricopa County ballot recount came after two election audits found no evidence of widespread fraud in Arizona

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The audits actually found that President Joe Biden had won the county by 360 more votes than the official results gave him

Despite Trump’s promise of ‘huge findings’ and vindication, the six-month search for evidence of fraud found Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results that were certified last year. 

President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by a little over 10,400 votes, awarding the state’s electoral votes to Democrats for the first time since 1964. 

Republican legislators were attempting to overturn the Biden win in the state, despite then-President Trump’s top cybersecurity official calling it ‘the most secure in American history.’  

Then-Attorney General William Barr also said the DOJ had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Maricopa County Board Chairman Jack Sellers, a Republican, called Friday’s hearing ‘irresponsible and dangerous.’ 

Cyber Ninjas, the Senate’s lead contractor who compiled the forensic report, said in its 100-plus page report that there were ‘no substantial differences’ between the group’s hand count of ballots and the official count. 

The report also made a series of other disputed claims the auditors say should cast doubt on the accuracy and warrant more investigation. 

‘The Cyber Ninjas’ opinions come from a misuse and misunderstanding of the data provided by the county and are twisted to fit the narrative that something went wrong,’ Sellers said in a statement. 

‘Once again, these “auditors” threw out wild, damaging, false claims in the middle of their audit and Senate leadership provided them the platform to present their opinions, suspicions, and faulty conclusions unquestioned and unchallenged. 

‘Today these “auditors” falsely and recklessly accused Maricopa County of potential crimes and Senate leadership amplified those lies.’ 

The Maricopa County Twitter account live-tweeted the Friday press conference on the results of the Arizona audit and fact-checked Cyber Ninjas’ claims.   

The finding was an embarrassing end to a widely criticized, and at times bizarre, quest to prove allegations that election officials and courts have rejected. It has no bearing on the final, certified results. 

The report shuts down Trump’s unsubstantiated fraud claims after he claimed tabulating machines had miscounted paper ballots across several states or had been hacked. 

Arizona’s ballot review began in April over the Republican-led county leadership’s objections.

Republican State Senate President Karen Fann led the campaign and publicly stated that the goal was not to revisit Biden’s win, but to look for ways to improve the state’s election laws.

Lawmakers subpoenaed a copy of Maricopa County’s ballots and voting machines, which were handed over to private contractors, according to the Washington Post.

In May, all seven of Maricopa’s elected officials, including five Republicans, called the review a ‘con’ and demanded the Senate end the review.   

Maricopa County’s official vote count was conducted in front of bipartisan observers, as were legally required audits meant to ensure voting machines work properly. A partial hand-count spot check found a perfect match.

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Maricopa County Board Chairman Jack Sellers called Friday’s hearing ‘irresponsible and dangerous.’ This is Sellers’ full statement

Two extra post-election reviews by federally certified election experts also found no evidence that voting machines switched votes or were connected to the internet. The county Board of Supervisors commissioned the extraordinary reviews in an effort to prove to Trump backers that there were no problems. 

Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, oversaw the audit despite the company having no experience working elections. Forbes revealed that Logan has spread outrageous conspiracy theories that a company tied to Hugo Chavez, the long-dead Venezuelan dictator, rigged voting machines against Trump

Election experts are advising Arizona’s recount serve as a warning sign to other Republican legislators who have agreed to recount their ballots, the Washington Post reported.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas have all agreed to review their own 2020 election after responding to pressure from Trump.

‘Every time Trump and his supporters have been given a forum to make their case, they have swung and missed,” said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who has criticized Trump’s fraud claims.  

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