News Roundup: Transparency Is Coming, Even Amid ‘Audit’ Report Delays

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As the Arizona Senate continues its efforts to delay transparency in its partisan election “audit,” the contractors running the operation have introduced yet more delays of their own.

The timeline for completing the sham review of Maricopa County’s election results had already stretched from weeks into months when a spokesman said last week that contractor Cyber Ninjas’ draft report was expected to be delivered to the state Senate by Monday. But on Monday, Senate President Karen Fann said it would only be a partial report because members of the Cyber Ninjas team were “quite sick” with Covid-19. Days later, even a partial report had not yet been delivered.

Meanwhile, in our lawsuit for records of the “audit,” the Arizona Supreme Court granted a stay on a lower court’s order requiring the Senate to turn over Cyber Ninjas’ records by Aug. 31. But the order does not freeze the litigation — the Aug. 31 deadline still applies to thousands of pages of related material. Be sure to check our website for updates; we’ll publish records as soon as they’re released.

Of course, the Senate’s resistance to transparency doesn’t obscure the fact that any purported findings in the contractors’ final report have already been compromised. And we continue to see attempts to relitigate the 2020 election in other states, as well as troubling reports about potential voter intimidation by self-described volunteers going door to door to ask about the election in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

In Wisconsin:

• Last weekend, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos took a private plane trip with former President Trump to brief Trump on his own bogus investigation of the election, which former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has been hired to run. (Gableman has previously said that the election was stolen from Trump.)
• A few days later, Reince Priebus said the election review would cost “about $680,000, at least to start,” and said that subpoenas would be issued “in the next week or two.” Priebus, who previously was head of the Wisconsin Republican Party and the Republican National Committee before serving as Trump’s chief of staff, made the remarks on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
• Vos confirmed that he had approved more spending for Gableman’s investigation, saying that he believed “a cyber-forensic audit is necessary.” He did not explain what he meant by “cyber-forensic audit.”

In Pennsylvania:

• State Sen. Jake Corman, the Senate’s president pro tempore, said that a “forensic investigation” of election results in his state would begin “almost immediately,” and according to the Philadelphia Inquirer repeated baseless claims about votes having been cast by dead people.
• Last week, Corman removed state Sen. Doug Mastriano as chair of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee, replacing him with Sen. Cris Dush, who will now be leading the review. Dush, along with Mastriano, was one of many state legislators from across the country who visited the “audit” in Maricopa County.

In Michigan:

• Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini reportedly told a group of election deniers that he was looking into having a cybersecurity firm investigate whether the election had been “hacked.”

On the Records

William Barr’s Text Messages
This week, in response to American Oversight litigation, the Justice Department released text messages of former Attorney General William Barr from 2019 and 2020. Messages exchanged with a top DOJ spokesperson and his chief of staff in late May and June of last year, as protests against the murder of George Floyd swept across the country, were of particular note: After former President Trump tweeted that he was designating antifa as a terrorist group — a designation that does not exist for domestic organizations — Barr and spokesperson Kerri Kupec discussed the tweet’s empty threat but celebrated its popularity among the president’s base.

Giuliani’s Ukraine Backchannel
In February 2020, Barr confirmed that the Justice Department had created a special “intake process” for assessing information regarding Ukraine that came from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. That information was reportedly being routed through the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh. We’ve obtained emails that potentially point to this arrangement, including one about a January 2020 meeting involving Giuliani’s lawyer and the U.S. attorney’s office. Another set of records include misleading materials that Giuliani sent to the office. More details here.

Ivanka Trump’s Emails with José Andrés
Pandemic-related emails from the Department of Agriculture include one sent on April 24, 2020, from chef José Andrés to Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and various USDA officials, in which Andrés offered his help and talked about what his nonprofit organization World Central Kitchen had been doing to deliver meals to people. See the other emails here.

Other Stories We’re Following

The Coronavirus Pandemic

• Hospitalizations hit 100,000 in United States for first time since January (Washington Post)
• In Florida, the pandemic is worse now than it has ever been before (New York Times)
• Masks ordered for most Florida students, defying DeSantis (Associated Press)
• In Florida, DeSantis cut jobless aid just as virus began terrifying new wave (Washington Post)
• U.S. outbreaks force early reversals on in-person learning (Associated Press)
• Gov. Greg Abbott bans mandates on Covid-19 vaccines regardless of whether they have full FDA approval (Texas Tribune)
• Oregon brings back an outdoor mask mandate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people (New York Times)
• Sadness and death: Inside the VA’s state nursing-home disaster (Politico)
• How the U.S. vaccination drive came to rely on an army of consultants (Washington Post)
• Companies move to mandate coronavirus shots as FDA grants full approval to Pfizer vaccine (Washington Post)
• Biden receives inconclusive intelligence report on Covid origins (Washington Post)
• NIH director: Vaccine approval for kids unlikely before late 2021 (Politico)

Other News

• Many measures of Earth’s health are at worst levels on record, NOAA finds (Washington Post)
• A former Pence aide says Trump and Stephen Miller tried to stymie Afghan refugee efforts (New York Times)
• As search for Tennessee flood victims ends, a community grieves (New York Times)
• Supreme Court orders the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy reinstated for asylum-seekers (NPR)
• Big business pledged nearly $50 billion for racial justice after George Floyd’s death. Where did the money go? (Washington Post)

Voting Rights

• Texas House advances GOP voting restrictions, which Democrats had blocked for weeks by fleeing the state (Washington Post
• Another Ohio elections bill proposed; would cut down early voting, ban ballot drop boxes and most mail voting (Statehouse News Bureau)
• North Carolina court grants voting rights to thousands of people on probation or parole for a felony (Charlotte Observer)

The Jan. 6 Attack and the Big Lie

• Jan. 6 investigators include Trump White House in first document requests (Politico)
• Secret Service warned Capitol Police about violent threats one day before Jan. 6 (Politico)
• Capitol Police officers sue Trump and allies over election lies and Jan. 6 (New York Times)
• Judge sanctions pro-Trump lawyers who brought ‘frivolous’ election fraud lawsuits (CNN)
• Report details mishandling of police emergency system on 1/6 (Associated Press)
• House panel investigating Jan. 6 attack seeks records from agencies on insurrection, Trump in first request for information (Washington Post)