Wealthy GOP donor bankrolled Cyber Ninjas' effort to get voting data, whistleblower says

A lawyer who enlisted Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan to access voting machines in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia is now accused of pushing a false election data report in Pennsylvania.

A cybersecurity company is suing Stefanie Lambert, claiming she urged employees to manufacture findings in her efforts to overturn 2020 election results for Donald Trump's legal team.

New York-based XRVision claims Lambert hired the firm to analyze voting machines used by a rural Pennsylvania county in the 2020 election and asked employees to falsely report finding "cheat codes" in software and evidence of hacking.

When employees refused to do her bidding, Lambert and her financial backer badmouthed the firm, damaging its reputation among members of the Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin senates and causing it to lose potential contracts, according to the lawsuit.

XRVision's allegations — bolstered by information from a Pennsylvania whistleblower who says he has been interviewed multiple times by the FBI — underscore the coordinated campaign Trump allies undertook to keep him in the White House that is now the subject of state and federal prosecutions.

Authorities allege a multipronged criminal conspiracy that involved seizing and dismantling voting machines from counties in battleground states; pressuring state and federal lawmakers to nullify elections; convincing Republican electors in seven states to falsely certify Trump won; and prompting the Arizona Senate "audit," which was the only private recount of public ballots in America.

XRVision's lawsuit accuses Lambert of defamation and breach of contract. It also names Pennsylvania businessman Bill Bachenberg, who served as co-chair of a committee to reelect Trump and who helped establish the state's alternate slate of Trump electors in 2020.

XRVision alleges Bachenberg agreed to fund attorney fees and expenses related to the Trump-fueled fraud investigations. Bachenberg gave Lambert a $1 million line of credit toward these efforts, and he determined "which forensic experts to hire and which election controversies to pursue."

XRVision and Cyber Ninjas were two of at least four companies Bachenberg secretly bankrolled through Lambert's Michigan law office, according to former Bachenberg employee and whistleblower Mike Ryan.

"She was the middleman for Bill Bachenberg's money," said Ryan, who worked for a Bachenberg-led nonprofit from January 2020 until November 2022.

Ryan told the USA TODAY Network that he met with the FBI in April and again in September to share evidence he collected, including information showing Lambert also hired two other cyber companies: Virginia-based CyFIR and Pennsylvania-based Wake Technology Services Inc.

Both companies later were hired by Logan to work as subcontractors on the hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County's 2020 election, which was authorized by the Arizona Senate.

CyFIR founder Ben Cotton is a Trump supporter who at the height of the ballot recount took copies of Maricopa County's election data and its server to a remote cabin in Montana.

Ryan referred to Bachenberg's attempts to access voting machines as equipment "audits."

"He was funding cyber firms to do election audits in several states," Ryan said in interviews. "Bill Bachenberg's fingerprints are all over the cyber audits in all four states. He is the biggest name in the Republican Party that you've never heard of."

Bachenberg is the founder of the cybersecurity company DBSi. He is a self-made millionaire and Allentown resident. He owns Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays and has served on the National Rifle Association board.

Bachenberg could not be reached for comment.

Lambert could not be reached by phone Tuesday and did not respond to multiple email requests for interviews. She has denied any wrongdoing.

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Lambert, Logan connection stretched over months, multiple states

Lambert exchanged more than 2,400 text messages with Logan during the Arizona Senate's discredited "audit," according to text messages obtained by The Arizona Republic as part of a public records lawsuit.

Text messages and court records show Lambert tapped Logan to analyze voting equipment in battleground states shortly after the Nov. 3, 2020, election.

Prosecutors with the Michigan Attorney General's Office say Logan was involved in taking apart five voting machines from three Michigan counties while holed up in a Detroit-area hotel room in April 2021 — just days after the Arizona Senate hired him to lead the "audit."

A Michigan grand jury indicted Lambert in August on multiple charges, including "undue possession" of a voting machine.

Lambert also is one of 30 unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators a Georgia grand jury accused of participating in a sweeping election conspiracy. Trump and 18 of his allies were charged in the case.

Lambert, who pleaded not guilty in Michigan, said all the cases were politically motivated. Logan was named in both cases but has not faced charges.

Text messages show Logan texted Lambert nearly every day — often dozens of times — from March 2021, before the ballot review began, to January 2022, months after it ended. Court records show Logan and Lambert were in contact even earlier.

Logan and Lambert discussed their Michigan election investigation, the Department of Justice, "audit" fundraising, Dominion voting machines and putting "liberal companies funding communism out of business," according to texts obtained by The Republic.

Logan also bragged about his reach into the Arizona Senate, telling Lambert he could direct state lawmakers to do his bidding on claims of election fraud.

Then-Senate President Karen Fann announced she'd chosen Cyber Ninjas on March 31, 2021. Although neither Logan nor his company had election auditing experience, Fann said he was "well qualified" and "well experienced."

The hand count was supposed to take a few weeks and cost taxpayers $150,000. It ultimately took months and so far has cost Arizona more than $5 million.

Logan said at a Sept. 24, 2021, Senate hearing the hand count showed President Joe Biden beat Trump in Maricopa County, and the numbers closely matched the county's certified election results from November. Logan's reports skimmed over the outcomes and focused on perceived voting irregularities.

But Logan privately admitted in text messages that he couldn't make sense of his own numbers, which he called "screwy."

Fann repeatedly has refused to explain her decision to hire Logan. But records obtained by The Republic show she hired the Cyber Ninjas to lead the hand count after communicating with Trump loyalist Phil Waldron, who also worked with Lambert.

An investigation by The Republic published Oct. 2 found Waldron helped draft subpoenas the Arizona Senate used to seize Maricopa County election data for the "audit." It was the first direct evidence that Trump's allies had steered the Senate's costly legal battle against the county as part of their efforts to overturn the election.

Lambert: Connected to election data forays in 4 states

Lambert is a common denominator in efforts by Republicans in four states to get data stored in Dominion voting machines.

Dominion is at the center of baseless conspiracy theories that election equipment was rigged in favor of Biden.

When Trump publicly and falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen via cheating and fraud, local and state officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan acted to inspect their voting machines.

A drive containing data election equipment from Georgia's Coffee County was addressed to Lambert and sent to a Michigan private investigator, the Detroit Free Press reported in August.

The shipment, detailed in court records, illustrates how data from a voting system breach in Georgia might have assisted experiments carried out on Michigan voting machines.

In Pennsylvania, Lambert and Thomas Carroll — a Pottstown lawyer who was a top signatory on the alternate slate of electors with Bachenberg — became pro bono counsel for that rural Pennsylvania county.

Fulton County commissioners approved the pair on April 12, 2022.

At an August hearing over custody of the voting machines, Fulton County's legal counsel objected at least six times when lawyers for the Pennsylvania Department of State asked whether Lambert still worked for the county. A Republican commissioner finally confirmed it.

Lambert said in a Sept. 6 social media post that journalists should report on "malicious python script installed by Dominion in Fulton PA with international communications."

The Python script refers to an unauthorized 2022 report on Fulton County voting machines by Michigan-based Speckin Forensics. Multiple attempts to interview Speckin about its findings have gone unanswered.

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Cybersecurity company seeks damages from Bachenberg, Lambert

XRVision is demanding $10 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages from Bachenberg and Lambert.

Bachenberg paid XRVision nearly $200,000 through Lambert for inspections of voting machines from Michigan's Antrim County, an endeavor labeled "Project Sampson" that took place between May 2021 and December 2021, according to the lawsuit.

When XRVision reported that the voting machines were not hacked or pre-configured to favor any particular candidates despite being "highly insecure," the suit alleges that Bachenberg and Lambert became furious.

Attorneys for the company also say Bachenberg and Lambert still owe the company $550,000 for its work on the voting machine inspections.

XRVision's attorney said the case hasn't proceeded because the company has been unable to serve Bachenberg and Lambert.

The attorney said Lambert uses multiple name variations: Stefanie Lambert Junttila, Stefanie Lynn Lambert, Stefanie Lambert Neagos and Stephanie L. Serafinski.

Whistleblower: 'The people have a right to know'

Ryan said Lambert and Bachenberg were working in concert with former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who famously promised to "release the Kraken" in a series of voter fraud lawsuits that ultimately fizzled for lack of evidence.

Powell was present for the widely reported Dec. 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting. She had urged Trump at that time to appoint her a special counsel and to seize voting machines across the country.

Lambert represented Powell in a 2021 Michigan sanctions case, arguing that Powell's statements challenging 2020 election results were "legally opinion."

Powell later said "no reasonable person" would believe her accusations about the rigging of Dominion voting machines were "truly statements of fact."

Ryan said he became suspicious of Bachenberg's activities in 2021 after his boss bragged about his role as a fake elector. His suspicions deepened when Bachenberg contacted him on Jan. 5 and warned him to stay away from Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, Ryan said.

He said he soon discovered Bachenberg was paying Lambert and started collecting records about their meetings and collaborations with Cyber Ninjas, XRVision and Wake Technology and their "voting machine schemes."

"I met with the FBI because I realized things weren't right," Ryan said, adding that he kept working with Bachenberg with the intention of collecting documents until he felt comfortable taking it all to federal agents.

That happened in in April, about six months after he left the company.

"April 7 was my first meeting with the FBI and special counsel's office," he said, referring to Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith. "I turned over some documents and emails that still have not been made public. We discussed my boss, his travel to Mar-a-Lago, the White House and additional meetings in D.C.."

Ryan said walking into the Washington field office was a surreal experience.

"The people have a right to know what happened with our nation's voting machines," he said.

Bruce Siwy is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network's Pennsylvania state capital bureau. He can be reached at bsiwy@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @BruceSiwy.

Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter for The Republic. Reach him at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8694. Follow him on X @robertanglen.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Stefanie Lambert sued by XRVision in voting machine dispute