News Roundup: A Web of (Big) Lies

Last week, in response to our litigation, the Arizona Senate released tens of thousands of documents related to its bogus election “audit.” The records brought additional scrutiny to the partisan operation, as well as new information about the involvement of Trump allies and conspiracy theorists, including anti-vaccine activist Shiva Ayyadurai.

The records also provide new insight into how Arizona’s sham review is being used to propagate the Big Lie across the country.

• The records include an agenda for a July “Election Integrity Call,” which includes updates on audits and rallies in a number of states; states listed as “Tier 1” are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
• Pennsylvania Senate leader Jake Corman told Steve Bannon (the Big Lie’s favorite podcaster) that he expects to issue subpoenas for information as part of the Intergovernmental Committee’s investigation of recent elections.
• During a Thursday hearing on “election integrity,” a Pennsylvania state senator was ruled “out of order” for pointing out that the Republicans’ only witness, Fulton County Commissioner Stuart Ulsh, had supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
• The records also include communications with Reince Priebus about efforts in Wisconsin, where two counties recently rejected state Rep. Janel Brandtjen’s subpoenas for election material, saying the subpoenas were invalid.
• On Wednesday, Brandtjen’s election-committee chair counterpart in the state Senate, Republican Sen. Kathy Bernier, held a hearing in which she pushed back on baseless fraud claims, saying that there was no reason “to spread misinformation about this past election, when we have all the evidence that shows otherwise.”
• But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ review is still underway, with taxpayer money going toward investigation leader Michael Gableman’s travel, including his visit to the Arizona “audit.”

As lawmakers in other states move forward with their own sham investigations, a web of familiar voter-fraud conspiracists have been linking up to promote the Big Lie:

• The latest easily-debunked fraud claim — that there were 15 million “missing” mail ballots — has been latched onto by former President Trump himself. The Washington Post‘s Aaron Blake explains here why the claim, which stems from a misleading report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, is bogus.
• The Arizona Mirror reported on Conan Hayes, a “superspreader of election disinformation” who allegedly contributed to a debunked report about election fraud in Michigan’s Antrim County, prepared by Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG), which was almost hired to conduct the Arizona Senate’s “audit.”
• Hayes also may have been involved in sharing sensitive election data from Mesa County, Colo., with a QAnon leader. The county clerk, Tina Peters, has been accused of assisting in the data breach.
• Last month, Peters — and the election data — appeared a “cyber symposium” organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in South Dakota. Gableman also attended the conference (with taxpayer money going to his travel), as did multiple Arizona legislators, ASOG’s Phil Waldron, and others.

Now, after weeks of delays, the Arizona “audit” team has said that next week it will finally send its draft report of its purported findings to the state Senate. Here are some more headlines related to the Big Lie and its consequences:

• New documents show just how crazy the Georgia recount fiasco got (Daily Beast)
• ‘Keep your head on a swivel’: FBI analyst circulated a prescient warning of Jan. 6 violence (Politico)
• Terrorized U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement (Reuters)

Other Stories We’re Following

The Coronavirus Pandemic

• Biden to outline plan to curb coronavirus Delta variant as cases grow (Reuters)
• S. reaches 75% of adults with at least one vaccine dose (Bloomberg)
• Florida judge rules against DeSantis again, allows schools to require masks (Washington Post)
• State troopers accused of making fake vaccination cards resign after colleagues turn them in (Washington Post)
• What the Sturgis rally shows us about the Delta variant (Washington Post)
• One in 5,000: The real chances of a breakthrough infection (New York Times)
• Covid medical bills are about to get bigger (New York Times)
• 15 Miami-Dade public school staff members die of Covid in just 10 days (HuffPost)
• Thousands of texts, then silence. How GOP pressure halted Covid-19 outreach to teens (Tennessean)

National News

• White House will withdraw David Chipman’s nomination as head of ATF (CNN)
• With evictions expected to mount, access to rental aid remains uneven (Washington Post)
• Fears of critical race theory unleash army of school board candidates (Politico)
• FDA delays decision on e-cigarettes from vaping giant Juul (Associated Press)
• Biden administration moves to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay (New York Times)
• Heather Bresch, Joe Manchin’s daughter, played direct part in EpiPen price inflation scandal (Intercept)

In the States

• South Dakota Kristi Noem orders restrictions on abortion meds (Associated Press)
• Noem used prison labor to build a gun-holding $9,000 desk — then got a discount (Daily Beast)
• ‘People will lose their lives’: Texas isn’t doing enough to prevent carbon monoxide deaths, critics say (ProPublica)
• Inside the Republican strategy for rolling out abortion bans in more states (The 19th)
• Oklahoma governor removes only physicians from medical board (Associated Press)
• Florida‘s GOP-backed ‘anti-riot’ law blocked by judge (Associated Press)
• How Apple and Google killed an Arizona bill aimed at their app store profits (Arizona Mirror)

Policing and Incarceration

• Beatings, buried videos a pattern at Louisiana State Police (Associated Press)
• Self-harm is exploding in New York City jails, internal numbers show (Gothamist/WNYC)
• How the NYPD is using post-9/11 tools on New Yorkers (New York Times)
• ‘They said they were vitamins’: Inmates in Arkansas jail say they were unknowingly given ivermectin to treat Covid-19 (CBS News)
• Minnesota State Patrol destroyed texts, emails after riot response (Star Tribune)