Arizona investigators signal fake electors probe could wrap in March

The Arizona attorney general's probe of individuals who in 2020 claimed to be legitimate electors for Donald Trump could wrap up in March, the office's top special agent predicted.

An email from the investigator says the office would be “tied up” until March, when it may then consider widening the investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election to include Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan.

The brief message provides clues about the timeline and scope of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ high-profile probe of the electors, the 11 Republicans who falsely certified that Arizona’s votes in the electoral college should go to Trump, not Joe Biden, in 2020. A narrow majority of Arizonans voted for Biden.

Mayes has kept details of her investigators’ work closely guarded, but the email indicates that pursuing the electors is a foremost priority.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada have brought charges against slates of electors there. Mayes, a Democrat who took office in January, has said her comparably short time in office was a reason her case was ongoing.

'It just tells me that it's not on the front burner'

The new information about Mayes’ inquiry was included in an email to Benny White, one of a trio of data experts known as The Audit Guys who have debunked and widely criticized the Senate Republicans’ ballot review of the 2020 presidential election.

Logan led the ballot review and more recently was an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator in Georgia's sweeping criminal case that alleges Trump and 18 others engaged in a plot to overturn Trump's loss there. Evidence shows that Logan worked closely with those in Trump’s orbit in a plan to subvert election results in several of the states that had false electors.

White shared the email with The Arizona Republic, citing frustration that law enforcement leaders won’t speak more openly about what they are pursuing.

“I think people have a right to know what the AG’s office is doing,” he said, later expressing concern that an inquiry into Logan’s role did not appear to be imminent.

“It just tells me that it's not on the front burner, and it may not be on the burner at all,” said White, a Pima County Republican data analyst.

White said he had been meeting and communicating via email with investigators in Mayes' office since summer. He said he sent investigators a report from The Audit Guys that suggests Logan could face charges of obstruction or contempt.

“My purpose in doing that was to try to put a wedge into their thinking up there in Phoenix that they still needed to take a look at what happened in the so-called forensic audit,” he said. “Because, to me, it appears that there were numerous violations of both federal law and state law and nobody had been held accountable.”

In a Dec. 13 email to James Cope, chief special agent in the criminal division of Mayes’ office, White asked for a meeting with Mayes’ deputy to discuss Logan’s role.

Cope responded that his boss Nick Klingerman “stated that we won’t be able to look at Logan until we finish with the current” case involving the electors.

“I think we will be tied up on this until March,” Cope wrote to White.

Klingerman is the chief of the criminal division.

Mayes knocks Brnovich, calls for 'seeing where the facts take us'

The Arizona Republic has previously reported Mayes' inquiry could include the Arizona Senate recount of 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots led by Cyber Ninjas. Prominent former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley has also called on county and state authorities to investigate Logan.

A spokesperson for Mayes declined to comment Monday on the email.

In a wide-ranging interview last week, Mayes would not provide details about the scope of her team’s inquiry. She also declined to share details from a meeting her investigators held with former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who wrote memos outlining how electors could help overturn the result.

“I'm just not going to talk about any potential witnesses or individuals that we may have spoken to as part of the investigation,” Mayes said. “It's just really important to me that this be a professional investigation that doesn't include the kinds of midstream updates that my predecessor was providing.”

Mayes has often criticized former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, for politicizing the office under his tenure.

In April 2022, while under political pressure from his party’s Trump allies to act, Brnovich released an “interim” report based on his review of the Cyber Ninjas’ findings. Brnovich’s report found “serious vulnerabilities” in elections but was widely criticized as politically motivated and debunked by county officials.

Mayes told reporters in August that her office's investigation was focused on the fake electors, but confirmed it could widen. Subsequent reporting by The Washington Post in October showed Mayes’ investigators cast a wider net, interviewing former House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Mesa Republican, and current and former Republican Maricopa County supervisors about the pressure campaign Trump and his allies exerted in the Grand Canyon State.

Asked about the scope of her office’s investigation last week, Mayes again declined to provide specifics.

She said she did not “want to artificially narrow it or broaden it, because I think this is really about letting the investigators do their work, letting the lawyers do their work, and seeing where the facts take us.”

Related: Here's how presidential candidates will be listed on Arizona's preference election ballots

Without consequences, White warns: 'They’ll do it again in '24'

White and his nationally recognized team — The Audit Guys — have analyzed thousands of private messages from Logan that were obtained by The Republic through lawsuits under Arizona Public Records Law.

The trio built software to organize the messages that they shared with investigators in Arizona and other swing states, White said.

With no experience auditing elections, Logan and his company were hired in 2021 by then-Senate President Karen Fann, a Prescott Republican. The company's resulting report confirmed Biden’s win but raised issues with “anomalies” in the election. Those claims continue to fuel doubt in elections and serve as talking points for GOP politicians faithful to Trump’s assault on elections.

Logan admitted in messages the audit’s numbers were “screwy.” The trove of messages also revealed Logan was part of a coordinated effort to overturn election results in several swing states when he was hired by the Arizona Senate.

White said he believes Logan could be a key source of evidence against power players in Trump’s orbit and the overarching conspiracy to overturn the election.

Without repercussions, “they’ll do it again in '24,” White said.

“We’ll see all the same actors, we’ll see the same tricks, and disinformation and frivolous lawsuits, and we'll go through another year or two years or three years of this nonsense,” he said.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona fake electors: Investigator predicts case won't wrap until March