The Senate’s “audit” team presented its report on Sept. 24, 2021. L to R: Ben Cotton of CyFIR, Doug Logan of Cyber Ninjas, Randy Pullen. Photo by Jerod MacDonad-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
WASHINGTON — When the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing Thursday to probe the so-called election “audit” in Arizona, the CEO of the company hired to conduct that controversial review will be absent.
Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, was asked to testify but told committee officials ahead of the hearing that he is refusing to participate, according to a press release from the panel Wednesday.
Logan’s unwillingness to testify comes after he and Cyber Ninjas repeatedly refused to produce documents sought by the Oversight Committee, which is controlled by the Democratic majority in the House, as part of its investigation into the Arizona election review. Logan is also refusing to surrender documents and communications that Arizona courts have ruled are public records.
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight panel declined to comment on whether the committee will subpoena Logan, a step that is within the committee’s authority.
The result of the months-long review of ballots in Maricopa County was the same as the official outcome: President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the county and in Arizona.
But election experts across the country have expressed alarm that the ongoing unsubstantiated claims of voting impropriety have undermined confidence in elections across the country.
“Consistent with Congress’s constitutional authorities, the committee is investigating the extent to which your company’s actions have undermined the integrity of federal elections and interfered with Americans’ constitutional right to cast their ballot freely and to have their votes counted without partisan interference,” wrote Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland in a letter last month directing Logan to appear before their panel.
Thursday’s hearing will include testimony from two Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who opposed the “audit,” Chairman Jack Sellers and Vice Chairman Bill Gates.
Other witnesses will include a pair of election experts: David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel at The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
A final witness, invited by the panel’s Republican members, will be Ken Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state who served as a liaison between the Arizona state Senate and the companies hired for the ballot review.
Bennett replaces an earlier invited GOP witness, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an MIT-trained engineer and entrepreneur who has a history of promoting discredited and debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, according to the Arizona Mirror.
***UPDATED: This story was updated to reflect additional information.
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