In the spirit of Jefferson Davis (part eighteen)

 

Part eighteen.

 

I’ve come the conclusion that the Arizona Audit needs to be adapted into an Opera. It’s got power struggles between people with God-like delusions, pomposity, lies, betrayals, shredded alliances, threats of torture and death, Ninjas on the inside, and clowns on the outside. I can easily imagine Fann dressed as a dragon, and Richer and Gates dressed in Viking helmets and carrying broadswords. By August 2021 the count part of the Audit was over, but the fat lady still refused to sing.

 

August 2^nd, in Arizona, Maricopa’s Board of Supervisors Vice-Chairman Gates was clearly winning in the second round of subpoena-battles with State Senate President Fann.

 

Though a Judge had already ruled that the Senate had the power to subpoena Maricopa, he didn’t order the County to comply, so it fell on the Senate to enforce that subpoena. The Republicans had an only one-vote majority in the Senate, and last time State Senator Paul Boyer broking ranks with his fellow Republicans and saved the Supervisors from the pokey by one vote.

 

Back then, after Fann was denied the power of arrest, the battle moved into the court room. True, Maricopa lost, and Fann got what she wanted, but Gates was confident this new subpoena was weaker, so he continued to stand his ground, “When our people get called out, when they accuse our employees in the elections department of engaging in fraud, we’re going to continue to push back. But having said that, we’re not going to run to the courthouse either. If we have to, we reserve the right to do that. But this is a political issue.”

 

On this day, he was more than happy to explain publicly why Maricopa had the upper hand this time.

 

Fann was weaker in the Senate, as another Republican Senator, Ugenti-Rita, has joined Boyer in publicly criticizing the audit, which she calls “botched.” And even if the increasingly frustrated Senate President Fann had the votes she needed, she’d run out of time to introduce or vote on the motion, the Senate was no longer in Session and won’t return to the Capitol until January.

 

The same day, in a different letter, Dominion was also resisted Fann, stating her subpoena, apparently intended as a short-cut around engaging in a Court case, or grand-standing, or both, violated Dominion’s due process rights under both the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions, sought to deprive the company of its property rights, and violated the Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure. The subpoena was, according to Dominion Attorney Eric Spencer, an “untethered to any valid legislative purpose … [and being] used as a tool of harassment.” They specifically objected to handing over passwords to machines that had already been returned to the County, making the Senate’s request pointless.

 

Strengthening Dominion’s case to resist the subpoenas, and likely Maricopa’s as well, was the role Cyber Ninja’s played in all this. Cyber Ninjas’ CEO, Logan, was a proven Conspiracy Masturbater and serial prevaricator, who’d designed the Audit’s scope and procedures, many of which made no sense, maybe because his firm lacked experience in Election reviews. Spencer again, “Releasing Dominion’s intellectual property to an unaccredited, biased, and plainly unreliable actor such as Cyber Ninjas would be reckless, causing irreparable damage to the commercial interests of the company and the election security interests of the country. No company should be compelled to participate in such an irresponsible act.”

 

Also, Boyer’s own resistance to Fann was less diplomatic than it had been in February. He strongly defended both parties’ refusals, they’re “100% in the right,” and that he’d oppose any attempt to hold them in contempt, “I’d be a ‘hell no.’”

 

Fann responded, “We are weighing our options for securing access to the routers and passwords and will make a thoughtful decision in due course after conferring with my staff, counsel, and colleagues. It is unfortunate the noncompliance by the County and Dominion continues to delay the results and breeds distrust.”

 

Maricopa County was willing to provide some requested material, but only if Fann could demonstrate it had a secure place to store them. But there was a problem, they couldn’t the sent to the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum because the Audit team had already pulled out the week before.

 

State Senator Wendy Rogers recommended Fann take an aggressive and punitive approach towards Maricopa and Dominion, and wrote on Twitter, “I would have arrested all of these people already if I had the power to do so. I vote to arrest. Arrest and put them in solitary,” but, of course, Fann had already tried that in February, and failed.

 

State House Minority Whip Leo Biasiucci also tweeted, “The complete disrespect to the Arizona Senate and to the Arizona Voters is disturbing. It’s time people are held accountable for this continued obstruction.”

 

Arizona Republican Part Chairperson Ward, either already, or soon to be, under criminal investigation for her role in the Fake Electors plot, demanded that Maricopa and Dominion “be held accountable.”

 

The same day, another Maricopa County Board member, Chairman Jack Sellers, also went public, referring to the Arizona Audit as an "adventure in never-never land … It is now August of 2021. The election of November 2020 is over. If you haven't figured out that the election in Maricopa County was free, fair, and accurate yet, I'm not sure you ever will

 

August 5^th, Fann proved that she was being more than slightly hypocritical in her attacks on Maricopa and Dominion’s recalcitrance, because she was also leading the State Senate to resist two Judges’ orders to release records too. Cyber Ninja’s conduct during the Arizona Audit had generated a number of law suits, two notable ones were brought by American Oversight, a nonprofit founded by former Obama administration officials that were investigating a number of Trump’s activities, the other by the Arizona Republic newspaper.

 

On this day, not for the first time, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp ordered Fann to hand over the secret Audit records “immediately.”

 

Fann resisted, submitting a petition signed by herself, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Peterson, and others, calling it "an extraordinary incursion into the sovereign affairs" of the Legislature. They also repeated the already failed argument that Cyber Ninjas records were not public.

 

August 6^th, the Federal Department of Homeland Security issued a formal warning to State and Local Officials warning of an “increasing but modest level of individuals calling for violence in response to the unsubstantiated claims of fraud related to the 2020 election fraud and the alleged ‘reinstatement’ of former President Trump.”

 

August 7^th, in Washington D.C, Capitol Police Captain Carneysha Mendoza (recently promoted from Special Operations Division to Head of the Civil Disturbance Units), was called into work for an unscheduled shift. Intelligence had come in that a group might try to break into the building. It turned out to be a false alarm, but it was at least the 30th time in the last seven months that Intelligence of a potential, escalating, threats had prompted the Force to go on high alert. She said, “There is no normal anymore. Normal is gone. This is just it.” And above her desk was a note she wrote for herself and her Officers, “Tragedy is not the end of our story.”

 

August 10^th was the first day of Cyber Symposium organized by Big Lie Influencer and My Pillow CEO Lindell in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (I will be referring to it as a Convention, or “Con”). It ran 72-hours, Tuesday to Thursday. Lindell claimed that he had 37 terabytes of information related to voter fraud to reveal at the cyber symposium, and offered a $5 million dollar reward to anyone who presented solid proof of large-scale Election Fraud, providing that person, or persons, came to the Con to present it.

 

Prominent guests included: The recently pardoned, Fake Elector Plotter and former White House Strategist Bannon. Computer Expert and QAnon Leader Ronald Watkins, who was possibly Q himself. And the son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo.

 

Eduardo gave Lindell a MAGA hat signed by Trump, "to Mike, a great patriot," to which Lindell said, "Thank you, Mr. President, our real president."

 

His father Jair, who spoke fondly of the County’s previous Military Dictatorship and publicly endorsed policies of assassination of political opponents, torture of prisoners, and vigilante violence; he’s often called the “Trump of the Tropics.” Jair would soon be facing a tough re-election campaign in the midst of falling poll numbers largely the result of, like Trump, his disastrous mishandling of the CV19 pandemic. Also like Trump, Jair was preemptively raising the specter of Election Fraud, with a focus on mail-in ballots. Continuing this thread of how Trump-like he seems, it’s suspected he will encourage and/or resort to violence in a desperate attempt to hold power; he’s even publicly threatened to execute a Coup (or Autogolpe).

 

Some would describe these guests as a Rogues’ Gallery, I’m sure Lindell was proud to have them. One prominent first day speaker, though, seemed to have caused some mild embarrassment, that was the “prominent Mathematician” and fellow Conspiracy Masturbater Waldron. Waldron and Mathematician Solomon were the two most important Expert Witnesses behind the claims that there was malware inside, or some sort of outside penetration, of computerized voting machines that switched votes to Biden, in its hundred variations identifying the Villains as Chinese, Venezuelan, and/or a cabal of Satan-worshipping Cannibalistic Child-Sex-Traffickers. They were the guys who most demonized Dominion. Both Waldron and Solomon were thoroughly debunked long ago, but Waldron was special, because eight days before the Con, in Dominion’s filings related to the law suit against OANN and others, they exposed Waldron as not being who he said he was. He wasn’t a Mathematician, but a college drop-out and convicted drug dealer who installed swing sets for a living.

 

Yet, Lindell, who was also being sued by Dominion, didn’t cancel him. When interviewed later, Lindell claimed his relationship to Waldron is limited, even though this speaking lecture wasn’t the first time they’d collaborated, Waldron was also part of the cast of Lindell’s movie, “Absolute Proof.” Lindell claims when Waldron was interviewed for the film, it was the first time they’d met, Lindell “didn’t know anybody in those movies” and that “people were recruited,” but not by him. There was a point, Lindell observed, that he was “like a hub of the country for evidence and everybody was just pouring in evidence.”

 

When Lindell, himself, spoke, he blasted FOX News. Once upon a time, he’d been one of the biggest advertisers on Tucker Carlson's program on FOX, but that all changed when the stopped covering his Conspiracy Masturbation because, they too, were facing a Dominion lawsuit. They also refused to air his Con and didn’t send a Reporter. "I said the other day they should be a weather channel, and the next day I changed my mind because they wouldn't report an oncoming storm."

 

While onstage, Lindell invited a Journalist Zachary Petrizzor from Salon to interview him, but later reversed himself, calling Petrizzo a "cancer."

 

At one point, Lindell rushed offstage when news broke that a Federal Judge denied his request to dismiss Dominion’s $1.3 billion defamation suit against him would go ahead. This was caught on the Con’s livestream, which abruptly switched to recorded news stories about Voter Fraud.

 

A Reporter from the Gateway Pundit became, according to Petrizzo, "super rude" and "very aggressive" towards another Journalist, shoved a camera in Petrizzo’s face and surreptitiously recorded his laptop. The Gateway Pundit Reporter was “frog-walked” out of the Con by security, but then snuck back in.

 

Petrizzo reported that on the first day of the event there were "a ton of Republican state legislators and their staffs," but, the next day the crowd “wasn’t having it” and mostly left. Then, "Only about half of the crowd here on day two is back for the third day."

 

On morning of that third day, the last day, Lindell claimed he’d been attacked on the way to his Hotel room. A Police report had been filed. Lindell said, "I’m OK. It hurts a little bit," Lindell said. "I just want everyone to know all the evil that’s out there.”

 

Waldron said there had been "credible threat warnings" and that they had "somebody working in the crowd ... detecting threats, “there were "really radical folks outside trying to penetrate" and that attendees were exchanging press badges in the parking lot, this presumably included the ejected Reporter from Gateway Pundit. "The big end game is to discredit all the legislators who have had the courage to be here. They're obviously trying to subdue the message that Mike's trying to get out ... So, this is a typical insurrection-type activity."

 

Lindell’s staffers had called the unidentified attackers, "Antifa thugs." Lindell's website, called “Frank,” sent out an email, "Mike Lindell and His Cyber Symposium Attacked — Please Share Everywhere."

 

The incident was actually photographed, and the man holding the camera was Jeff Buongiorno, a Republican running for Federal Congress in Florida. Buongiorno has proven to be a problematic witness for Lindell. Buongiorno version is that he and two others were posing with, and taking pictures of, Lindell. Then another man, whom Buongiorno didn't know, approached and asked to take a photo, as well. That stranger is the one Lindell claims attacked him, but Buongiorno said, "There was no attack."

 

Despite contradicting Lindell on this head-line making story, Buongiorno appears to be a Lindell supporter, because three days later he tweeted, “Lindell did a great job in starting the election caucus and we will get to the bottom of fraud through audits and we'll have fair and free elections.”

 

On the last day of the Con, Cyber Expert Rob Graham tweeted, "He gave us experts NOTHING today, except random garbage that wastes our time … All day Mike Lindell has been on stage saying the cyber experts are happily working on packet captures. We are not. We haven't been given the packet captures we were promised." A Packet Capture is network intercepted by Hackers.

 

Election Security Expert Harri Hursti said the Con was "a big fat nothing and a distraction … they have fed us with garbage just to control the narrative."

 

One Expert in Cyber Security and Technology observed that even if Lindell claims proved true, his evidence could get him into legal trouble. "You can't just pull this kind of information from a remote, you have to have a physical device sitting there that is providing this information," the only way Lindell could have accumulated the kind of data he claims to have is by inserting a physical device that can "watch information that is going in and out of a network," which is wiretapping and a breach of federal law. 

 

And seemingly confirming this concern, it has been reported that at least some of the data presented at the Con came from invasions of Voting Management Offices that took place on May 4th and 19th in Ohio and Colorado, respectively.

 

One of the people who watched the Con on Social Media was Eric Allen Pickett, a Night Staffer at a Youth Treatment Center in Utah. His anger boiled over. He paid special attention to a Clerk in Mesa County, Colorado when she attacked the Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Griswold was leading an investigation into Peters over the Voting-System’s security mentioned in the prior paragraph. Peters claimed Griswold had “raided” her office to manducated false evidence to “bully” her. (Her claims were untrue.)

 

Pickett got on Facebook and sent Griswold a message:

 

“You raided an office. You broke the law. STOP USING YOUR TACTICS. STOP NOW. Watch your back. I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP, I SEE YOU SLEEPING. BE AFRAID, BE VERRY AFFRAID. I hope you die.”

 

The threat was referred to State and Federal Law Enforcement.

 

Pickett regrets sending the message. He says he “got wrapped up in the moment.” Oddly, he claims to be surprised that Griswold found the message threatening. “I didn’t know they would take it as a threat. I was thinking they would just take it as somebody just trolling them.”

 

The Colorado State Patrol reviewed all messages it received from Griswold’s office and chose not to arrest Pickett. Three legal experts said the message met the threshold of a threat and could be prosecuted under Federal Law. William & Mary Law School Professor Timothy Zick commented on the Law Enforcement response, “The whole purpose of the threats doctrine is to protect people from not only a prospect of physical violence, but the damage of living with a threat hanging over you.”

 

August 19^th, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs released a lengthy outline of the flaws of the Cyber Ninjas audit. "All credible audits are characterized by controls, access, and transparency that allow for the processes and procedures to be replicated, if necessary. As this report has described, the review conducted by the Senate's contractors has consistently lacked all three of these factors."

 

August 20^th in Arizona, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, released a 38-page open letter explaining, step-by-step, how the Arizona Audit was being driven by lies promoted by Trump and his allies. "At this point, I hope my principal motivation for speaking out is abundantly clear: the Ninja audit is an abomination that has so far eroded election confidence and defamed good people,"

 

Richer said he and his family had campaigned for Trump, but now condemned the same man after being the subject of false accusations for months. "More than any moral code, philosophical agenda, interest group, or even team red vs. team blue, many politicians will simply do whatever it takes to stay in office.

 

"Right now, a lot of Republican politicians have their fingers in the wind and think that conforming to Stop the Steal, or at least staying quiet about it, is necessary for reelection in their ruby red districts or a statewide Republican primary. So that's what they'll do. Multiple elected or hoping-to-be-elected Republicans have told me this explicitly … It's disgusting."

 

He was "embarrassed" listening to his fellow Republicans "concoct the most outlandish theories (Chinese ballots!) to avoid accepting the reality: we lost the top two races in Arizona." He pointed out that many of the same Election Officials being attacked now had overseen prior elections where the Republican POTUS candidate won.

 

August 23^rd, was the day Cyber Ninjas was supposed to issue its draft report on the Arizona Audit, but it was delayed because CEO Logan and several other members of his team were sick with CV19.

 

The level of spite and suspicion that the Audit process had engendered can’t be overstated. It was not only between Republicans and Democrats, but also between Republicans and Republicans, and the intra-conflicts appeared to worse that the inter-conflicts; the Party was now divided between Trump-Cultists and sane people, and the ruling Republicans in the Senate had made enemies of the Republicans in Maricopa County. In the wake of this day’s announcement, there was evidence that the Big Lie Advocates were about to turn on each other, on the Arizona Republican Part Facebook page, one woman was posted, "How convenient that COVID shows up. Surely there is a way to still proceed with Zoom or Skype." Suggesting that now that even Senate President Fann was suspected of being part of the cabal of Satan-worshipping Cannibalistic Child-Sex-Traffickers.

 

On RWN message board Telegram, “Delegate to another patriot. Freedom doesn’t die with the threat of covid.”

 

Bit it would be wrong to suggest, though, that the Democrats and/or Liberals were above extreme pettiness. On the Izzie & Colbert Twitter page, “I genuinely want to thank @AZSenateGOP because for the rest of my life, even when I’m going through dark times, I will be able to think of this statement and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.”

 

To which Fann responded testily, but appropriately, “So your laughing because people are extremely ill with Covid and in the hospital?”

 

August 25^th, in Detroit Michigan, District Court Judge Linda Powell “eviscerated” Trump Attorney Powell and her cohorts over a Kraken law suit, “this lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process. It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election. It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here.”

 

Both the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan (listed among the defendants in Powell’s law suit) had demanded sanctions to be brought against Powell and her colleagues. Those sanctions began on this date: the Kraken team was ordered to attend continuing legal education courses, cover some of the defendants’ legal fees, and were referred the State Disciplinary Board for “possible suspension or disbarment.”

 

Prior to this, Powell defended herself by saying she was under no obligation to thoroughly research the claims she made, on the record, in court, about Voter Fraud. But under increasing pressure, the  most recent filings by Powell and her associate Howard Kleinhendler, went farther, admitting that (as journalist Dan Gilbert put it) “everything they had been saying may not actually be true, –but because lots of people were saying it at the time, they decided to include it.” Or, to quote the Attorneys, “Millions of Americans believe the central contentions of the complaint to be true, and perhaps they are.”

 

Yeah, let’s all file a lawsuit that flatly states that the Earth is flat, provide no evidence to support it, and better still, let’s email the brief from the International Space Station, only because we know someone who’s a Flat Earther.

 

August 23^rd, in Pennsylvania, State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, a Republican, agreed to a Official Review of the 2020 POTUS Election. Previously, he’d resisted doing it (my phrase) “just for show.” He had supported increasing mail in ballots in 2019, shortly after the 2020 Election he notably skipped a Senate hearing on Election Fraud that featured Trump Attorney Giuliani, and then publicly stated there was no evidence of widespread Fraud. But apparently, he buckled to Trump-Cult pressure. Corman said he’d spoken personally with Trump, “I think he’s comfortable where we are headed.” Within weeks, subpoenas were issued to would deliver “a wide range of data and personal information about the state’s voters” to the hyper-partisan Committee.

 

State Senator Doug Mastriano was the leading figure behind the pressure on Corman, he’d recently gone on OANN and accused Corman of “stonewalling” his attempts to start a “forensic audit.” Not surprisingly, Mastriano was a proud Trump-Cultist. He’d led the above-mentioned hearing with Giuliani. The month before he demanded virtually all election-related equipment and materials, from multiple Counties under threat of subpoena, and when they refused, he started gearing up to have his Committee vote on the subpoenas. He’d even pushed for a pro-Trump slate of Electors to go to Congress even though Biden carried the Pennsylvania, but that proposal was dismissed as it clearly would’ve been illegal.

 

An important aside here:

 

Mastriano’s Electors scheme was similar to, but not part of, the Fake Electors plot; Mastriano’s version was done publicly and no fraudulent paperwork was filed, so Fake Electors weren’t something that “would’ve been illegal” but a crime that was actually committed. As it happens, Pennslvia did have Fake Electors, but I’m unaware of Mastriano being involved in that. It’s worth looking at a partial list of those who had signed on as Fake Electors:

 

Bill Bachenberg, Lou Barletta, and Charlie Gerow, all running for Governor in 2022; Bernadette Comfort, Vice-Chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party; Calvin Tucker: Deputy Chairman and Director of Engagement the Pennsylvania Republican Party; Tom Carroll, Candidate for District Attorney in Northampton County, he’d previously served as Assistant District Attorney but resigned after a Black colleague complained he’d put a stuffed monkey with a shirt reading “Loudmouth” on her keyboard; Ted Christian, former State Director of Trump’s 2016 POTUS Campaign; Lisa Patton, Director of Events for Trump’s 2020 POTUS Campaign. Sam DeMarco III, Chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County; Josephine Ferro, the Monroe County Register; Kevin Harley, Press Sectary for former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett; Leah Hoopes, named as a defendant in a law suit brought by a Delaware County Supervisor who alleges that the Big Lie campaign had made him subject to physical threats; Pat Poprik, Chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee; and Andy Reilly, member of the National Committee for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.

 

Then there were the others who didn’t sign the fraudulent document Calvin Tucker: Deputy Chairman and Director of Engagement the Pennsylvania Republican Party. But were still deeply involved:

 

Lawrence Tabas, then-Chairman and General Council for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, and was quoted as saying he personally spoke to Trump about the illegal scheme; Robert Gleason, former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party; Robert Asher, former Chairman of the Republican State Committee until he was convicted of conspiracy and bribery in 1987 and served one year in Federal prison; Thomas Marino, formerly of the Federal House of Representatives but abruptly, perhaps mysteriously, resigned two weeks into his fifth turn and who was, by then, already scandal plagued because in 2017, Trump nominated him to be the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but he was forced to withdraw his name after it was exposed he’d crafted a bill made it harder for the Drug Enforcement Administration to go after Opioid Manufacturers who make suspicious sales (that Bill eventually became law); Carolyn Welsh, former Sheriff of Chester County and plead “no contest” to misdemeanor theft charges for paying employees in tax dollars for volunteering at fundraisers for the office’s K-9 unit.

 

When this uncomplete list is compared to Fake Elector lists from the seven other States, it’s striking how many ranking Republicans in every case got themselves involved in this illegal scheme. In each and every State, the Chair, and Vice-Chair, of that States Republican Party were involved. Also, the lists of Plotters are probably incomplete.

 

Back to Mastriano. Though he did manage to force Corman to cave, Corman could not tolerate Mastriano, in his role as Chairman of the Senate Intergovernmental Committee, leading the Review and creating a fiasco like that one that Corman saw unfolding in Arizona. To protect his State, and his Party, in the longer term, Corman the extraordinary step of stripping Mastriano of his title and replacing him with another Republican, Senator Cris Dush. Also, the review would be focused on finding poor procedures and security, not a “forensic audit.” Dush promised he would treat “evidence as evidence and not as a means of obtaining publicity.”

 

Corman had support within his Party for this move, but it wasn’t universal. Chairman of the Republican Party Huntingdon County, wherein Corman’s own District rests within that County, stated, “What will this all mean down the road? Sen. Corman’s longevity in office is endangered. I expect Mastriano to stay around for a while.”

 

Former Trump White House Strategist Bannon said, “This is an outrage! … Corman’s got no place to hide.”

 

Trump chimed in as well, “Why is State Senator Jake Corman of Pennsylvania fighting so hard that there not be a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam? Corman is fighting as though he were a Radical Left Democrat.”

 

August 31^st, in Arizona, the State Senate finally released some texts and emails regarding the Audit, but were still withholding thousands of documents, so were still in defiance of orders from two Judges to be completely transparent. Even this small batch was embarrassing to Fann. They showed pro-Trump Attorney Mitchell who had worked so closely with Team Trump going back at least as far as the August before the Election and was a central player in the Fake Electors plot, set up an escrow account to funnel money to the companies working on the audit, proof that the Audit to that some believed would overturn the Election was being paid for, in part, by the losing Candidate’s Team. Also, notorious Conspiracy Masturbator, specifically Anti-Vaccine Conspiracies, Shiva Ayyadurai, had been hired to review voter signatures on the county's mail-in ballot envelopes.