Arizona 'audit' leader wants texts with Michigan lawyer indicted over voting machines to stay secret

Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan is trying to keep secret more than 1,600 texts he exchanged with a Michigan lawyer who was indicted on charges of illegally accessing voting machines as part of a plot to overturn 2020 election results.

Logan sent and received nearly 2,400 texts with Stefanie Lambert, more than any other person he messaged while leading the Arizona Senate's "audit" of 2020 ballots cast in Maricopa County, records show.

And now Logan and Lambert appear to have coordinated efforts to redact and conceal most of their messages — including ones directly related to the ballot review — despite multiple court orders to turn them over in response to a public records lawsuit filed by The Arizona Republic.

In addition to blocking Lambert's texts, Logan is claiming he stopped communicating with "any individual associated with the audit" on New Year's Day 2022. However, his own records show he exchanged 1,487 texts after that date with allies of former President Donald Trump who took active roles in the Arizona Senate's partisan recount.

Lambert, an ardent supporter of Trump, enlisted Logan to take apart and analyze voting machines in Michigan and Georgia in the weeks before the Arizona Senate hired him.

Logan, who was initially named as a suspect but will not face charges in the Michigan case, texted Lambert nearly every day — often dozens of times — from March 2021, before the ballot review began, to January 2022, months after it ended.

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.

"I can get AZ Senators to perform more actions if need be; but I need to know the information is credible," he said in a June 1, 2021, text.

Logan now claims the public should not see more than half of his exchanges with Lambert. He has redacted 1,631 messages and is attempting to claw back 84 already made public, records show.

Logan on July 26 released 49 pages of mostly blacked-out texts he exchanged with Lambert that he claimed were protected from disclosure by attorney-client privilege.

Lambert did not have an official role in the "audit" and she was not Logan's lawyer. His claim appears based on a theory forwarded by Lambert that their texts are confidential because Logan worked for her in Michigan and Georgia.

Or, as she put it in a June 14, 2021, text: "FYI all of our conversations are protected by attorney client privilege since you are an expert on two of my cases."

Neither Logan nor his attorney responded to interview requests. Lambert on Thursday said she could not discuss the texts because of "a professional relationship that exists that prohibits me from talking."

Probe started: Arizona fake electors, Cyber Ninjas' 'audit' under investigation by state attorney general

But notes included with the 49 pages of redacted texts make clear Logan and Lambert talked plenty about the "audit," including "lack of funds," staffing, news articles, potential lawsuits, reports to the Arizona Senate and technology issues.

Some of the notes added to the redactions include:

"Privileged discussion of individual who may have contributed to fraud in election," Logan wrote of the redaction to a March 11, 2021, text.

Of a June 3, 2021, text: "Arizona audit and related to attorney work product."

Of a June 10, 2021, text: "Privileged legal discussion of legal ramifications of not having funds to finish audit and what are legal alternatives."

And of a June 25, 2021, text: "Privileged legal discussion of talking points with Senate."

The Republic is challenging the redactions, and in a July 31 motion to compel, asked the Maricopa County Superior Court to intervene.

"Nearly two years after this court first ordered Cyber Ninjas to produce the public records in their possession, and despite multiple court orders and sanctions since then, Cyber Ninjas and their principals continue to unlawfully withhold public records related to the audit of 2020 voting results," the news organization's lawyers wrote in the motion filed in court.

Lambert facing criminal proceedings in Michigan

Lambert was arraigned in Michigan on Aug. 3 after a grand jury indicted her on multiple charges, including "undue possession" of a voting machine.

Lambert was charged under her full name, Stefanie Lambert Junttila, and pleaded not guilty. She does not use her full name publicly or at her legal practice.

She lashed out at special prosecutor DJ Hilson over the charges and threatened to sue him for not following the law, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

Lambert on Thursday provided a statement to the Free Press from her attorney accusing prosecutors of misconduct: "My client was a zealous advocate for her clients and she did not violate the law and intends to sue Hilson for malicious prosecution," attorney Michael Smith said in the statement.

Former Michigan attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, who was endorsed by Trump, and ex-state Rep. Daire Rendon, both Republicans, also were charged. They have pleaded not guilty and say the investigation is politically motivated.

Authorities accused Lambert, DePerno and Rendon of orchestrating a conspiracy with a group who "gained unauthorized access and compromised tabulators" from multiple Michigan counties in a plot to prove voter fraud and restore Trump to office, according to records from the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

Six others were named last year as co-conspirators, including Logan and Arizona "audit" subcontractor Ben Cotton, the president of a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm called CyFIR. Authorities said they were involved in taking apart five voting machines from three counties while holed up inside a Detroit-area hotel room in April 2021, the same month the ballot review started in Phoenix.

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.

Hilson on Thursday said Logan, Cotton and the others would not face charges. He said they were duped into believing they were not breaking the law and had the authority to access the machines.

Trump lawyer had role: Rudy Giuliani may have assigned volunteer to Arizona 'audit', new emails show

Court records and Logan's text messages show he also worked with Lambert to access voting machines in Georgia.

A surveillance camera captured Logan smiling as he strode on January 2021 into the Coffee County, Georgia, election office, where authorities say voting machines were breached.

Logan testified in a Georgia civil elections case last year that he was asked to examine data at the behest of Lambert and other Trump allies. He said Lambert had him sign a "confidentiality agreement" related to the Coffee County data that he obtained.

Logan has not been charged in the Georgia data breaches, which are under review by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Logan, Lambert exchanged messages about voting equipment

Logan and Lambert discussed Michigan and Georgia election equipment in their frequent exchanges during the Arizona "audit," records show.

At one point, Logan offered up a possible defense for his Michigan activities.

"Its my opinion that the equipment in Michigan was put under your care, and even if I used it that doesn't put it under 'my control,'" he wrote in a May 14, 2021, text.

He also appeared to push back at suggestions that he or Cotton had mishandled Maricopa County election data during the "audit."

"I plan on sending a cease and desist for misinformation stating I've never violated any chain of custody of voting equipment; and that this is a baseless accusation," he said in another May 14, 2021, text. "I've never had any voting equipment under my control directly, and CyFIR has followed all chain of custody requirements in Maricopa County."

Court action: Judge's ruling keeps some Senate 'audit' texts, emails secret but could release others

Texts show Logan and Lambert talked about key members of Trump's legal team and other "Stop the Steal" allies and their involvement in the ballot review. Those included Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, retired Army Col. Phil Waldron and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"Sidney has not been involved in anything with AZ besides talking about providing funding. That hasn't even happened yet," Logan said in March 12, 2021, texts. "Phil (ASOG) had initial conversations with AZ Senate and told them to call me; but he hasn't even been part of the negotiations."

ASOG is a reference to a Texas-based cybersecurity firm called Allied Security Operations Group affiliated with Waldron.

Former Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, initially considered hiring ASOG to run the "audit" but later rejected them over concerns about credibility and their dissemination of discredited election fraud theories.

She later opted for Cyber Ninjas based on Waldron's recommendation, texts show.

Lambert appeared to caution Logan as he was under consideration for the job.

"No I mean AZ might be testing you ... Just to see how loose your op is," Lambert said in a series of texts on March 12, 2021. "I think AZ might be a test ... They might be testing if you turn over confidential info."

Claim of 'no further communications' belied by texts

A team of nationally recognized data analysts is helping to unspool more than 39,000 text messages sent or received by Logan and obtained by The Republic through its lawsuit.

The team says Logan's efforts to redact his messages with Lambert appear deliberate. The team points out Logan not only exchanged more messages with Lambert than anyone else associated with the "audit," but he also has redacted more of hers.

Take Trump lawyer Christina Bobb, who helped to manage and finance the "audit" while reporting about it for the far-right One America News Network. She also acted as a go-between for Trump and Logan.

Logan exchanged nearly 2,000 texts with Bobb, of which only about 30 remain redacted, a review shows.

He exchanged 2,381 with Lambert and is trying to keep 1,631, or 58%, shielded from public view.

"It makes you want to know what he is hiding," election analyst Larry Moore said. "He is dribbling out information slowly, and carefully selecting what he wants to leave out. This isn't an accident."

Moore is part of a trio of election experts known in the industry as The Audit Guys, who in 2021 published multiple reports saying they could not validate or replicate Cyber Ninjas' "audit" numbers.

The Audit Guys built software and databases to untangle Logan's messages, which have come in haphazard, nonsequential batches and in different formats. Threads of conversations were broken and not easily searchable. The messages, released in November, December, February, March and July, were not organized chronologically or in any other discernible order.

The team's review also found gaps in Logan's communications, exchanges where Logan's side of the conversation is missing and several instances of texts stopping mid-conversation and picking up days or weeks later on different topics.

Logan's handling of texts with Lambert and his claim that he stopped communicating with "audit" associates on Jan. 1, 2022, seem like further deception, Moore said.

“As of this date Doug Logan has had no further communications with any individual associates with the Audit other than his attorney," according to a message attached to the end of the 49 pages of blacked-out texts.

His texts tell a different story.

They show Logan talked strategy and resources with Waldron; ballots and tallies with Republican operative Seth Keshel; nonprofit donations and Senate testimony with Bobb; Dominion voting machines and data with Cotton; and ballot images and county servers with We the People AZ Alliance member Matt Van Bibber.

"Lately, the Senate's has been working against us in the courts as well, which doesn't help things," Logan wrote in a pair of group messages on April 8, 2022. "Courts clearly have a different set of rules for me than anyone else."

What previous text records have shown, and what comes next

A judge in January 2022 fined Logan's company $50,000 a day until he complied with an order to turn over all communications related to the ballot review. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the fine in July, rejecting Logan's request to rescind it. The fines now total several million dollars.

The Republic in 2021 sued the state Senate and Cyber Ninjas for "audit" records under the Arizona Public Records Law. The lawsuits have forced the disclosure of tens of thousands of documents detailing the highly partisan nature of the botched ballot review.

Records released so far make clear Logan was engaged in a coordinated campaign to overturn election results when he was hired, and that Cyber Ninjas never had to deliver a definitive report on the ballot review — it only had to try.

Text messages show Logan couldn't make sense of his own data and had no way to quantify results of the hand count. In a series of messages, Logan said "our numbers are screwy" and that he would be satisfied so long as the count was right "most of the time."

That meant the work of hundreds of volunteers, who spent two months sitting at counting tables inside Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix reviewing ballots and recording individual votes with tick marks onto more than 70,000 tally sheets, was worthless.

Motion rejected: Judge denies Cyber Ninjas' request to limit release of public records in AZ 'audit' case

Arizona Senate Republicans in early 2021 announced they would commission a hand count to address claims the election was stolen from Trump. The Senate subpoenaed the ballots and other election material from Maricopa County. The review was supposed to take a few weeks and cost taxpayers $150,000. It ultimately took more than five months and so far has cost Arizona taxpayers more than $5 million.

While Logan confirmed President Joe Biden's victory in Arizona, his report to the Senate focused on so-called anomalies that raised doubts about the process. It allowed Trump allies to insist the vote was compromised, instilling distrust in voting machines and encouraging partisan calls for paper ballot tabulations, hand recounts and "audits."

The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced in July that it had launched its own probe into a range of Republican-led efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

That includes two slates of fake electors who falsely certified the state's electoral votes should go to Trump and the Cyber Ninjas "audit," the only privately run recount of ballots in America.

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

SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Act now, to get the best in local journalism. Subscribe at https://subscribe.azcentral.com/offers.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Cyber Ninjas CEO Logan aims to keep texts with Stefanie Lambert secret