Cyber Ninjas, a pro-Trump firm hired by Arizona Republicans to conduct a review of Maricopa County’s election results at the request of defeated former president Donald Trump, announced that it is shutting down after a judge ordered it to pay $50,000 a day in fines over the fake audit. The heavy fine came after a county government report slammed the firm for providing false information to the Arizona senate.
The development was first reported by Sam Levine, a reporter for The Guardian, tweeting that CEO “Doug Logan and the rest of the employees have been let go and Cyber Ninjas is being shut down.”
Cyber Ninjas said it recounted 2.1 million ballots and confirmed Biden beat Trump in the state, but claimed in its September draft report that thousands of ballots had issues, including duplicate ballots, voters who cast ballots multiple times and unregistered voters participating in the election.
As noted by The Hill, however, Maricopa County released a report this month, arguing Cyber Ninjas made 22 misleading claims, 41 inaccurate claims and 13 claims that were false.
The county said Cyber Ninjas “made faulty and inaccurate conclusions about more than 53,000 ballots in 22 different categories.”
“An empty piñata is a pretty accurate description of the ‘audit’ as a whole,” the county tweeted Thursday.
The county’s report was followed by a Thursday order that Cyber Ninjas turn over public records to The Arizona Republic, including emails and text messages, to comply with an August ruling — or face $50,000 in fines per day.
Shut down comes as the company remains mired in legal disputes over public records and was sanctioned with $50,000 fine today for each day it doesn’t turn over records. Abrupt fall for a company that led a high profile effort celebrated by Trump and GOP months ago
— Sam Levine (@srl) January 7, 2022
An empty piñata is a pretty accurate description of the "audit" as a whole. Our point-by-point response debunking 74 of their 75 claims and 53,217 of the 53,304 of the ballots they claimed were questionable is available for review at https://t.co/BN4LkyzxER. https://t.co/p6uesdw4cz
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) January 7, 2022
CORRECTING THE RECORD ON NOV. 2020 ELECTION: We have published our comprehensive response to the Senate/Cyber Ninja #azaudit.
Read the report: https://t.co/BN4LkyzxER
Read the release: https://t.co/ybVu2F5SnO🧵⬇️ pic.twitter.com/NNAXfaDYKQ
— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) January 5, 2022
