Indicted Michigan lawyer pushed false claims of fraud for Arizona 'audit' report, texts reveal

A Michigan lawyer steeped in conspiracy theories helped write the Cyber Ninjas' final report to the Arizona Senate on its 2020 election "audit" and pushed to include false claims of fraud.

Stefanie Lambert, who led efforts to access voting machines in four states, wanted Cyber Ninjas' CEO Doug Logan to say the review found evidence that fake ballots were cast in Maricopa County's election, newly unredacted text messages show.

Lambert repeatedly sought to include the bogus information even as Logan told her in private texts the claims were meritless.

Logan told her that claims of fraud she wanted to include did not hold water, texts show. She didn't like that response.

“You are killing me,” Lambert wrote in a text as Logan's deadline to report to the Senate approached. “You need to do this.”

Logan told her "the ballots in question were unlikely fraud.”

The exchange is among 1,484 texts Logan sought to hide from the public by blacking out the contents. But a technical error allows for anyone to erase the redactions and make the messages visible.

The dispute between the two likely was difficult for Logan because Lambert also was helping him raise the money he needed to pay bills for his "audit" work. His finances were a constant worry, according to their private messages obtained through a public records lawsuit and unredacted by The Arizona Republic.

The newly available messages also cover disputes with a wealthy "audit" funder, Logan's worries that he violated terms of his contract with the Arizona Senate and Lambert's concerns Logan could be charged with "sedition."

Lambert helped raise funds for the "audit" amid her efforts to overturn elections and access voting equipment in multiple swing states that helped elect President Joe Biden, for which Lambert now faces criminal charges in Michigan.

Lambert has not responded to phone calls and text messages about her exchanges with Logan.

Logan did not respond to a question about Lambert's role in writing the report to the Arizona Senate.

'Running out of time': Logan rejects a Lambert plea

As Logan finalized his Senate report in August 2021, Lambert urged him to hire a purported expert who claimed to find irregularities on ballots. Logan told her the supposed irregularities did not favor one candidate or another and were found on ballots for Donald Trump as well as Biden.

“I've been saying for weeks I was running out of time," Logan wrote in a text to Lambert. "We need to get this report out, and I need to focus my efforts on the most plausible ways for success. Chasing down paper which doesn't lean to one candidate to the other isn't the highest priority. I need to spend my energy on those things that will cause our report to have a splash."

The debate was over a man named Erich Speckin, who has made dubious claims of election fraud because of what he says are imperfections in lines on ballots.

Speckin exchanged about 100 messages with Logan on the "audit."

Those messages show Speckin privately was not making claims of fraud to Logan, even though he later appeared in a dramatic online video and produced a written report claiming 23,000 ballots were not printed properly.

Twelve days before Logan presented his final report to the Arizona Senate, Logan asked Speckin about Lambert's claims that he had found fraud.

"Stephanie is telling me we have fraudulent ballots… has anything changed since we talked this morning; (or) is she just being her usual over optimistic self? :-)," Logan messaged Speckin on Sept. 12, 2021.

Speckin responded: "Nothing changed since you left," prompting Logan to reply, "That's what I figured."

At about the same time, Logan was messaging with Lambert about sections she had added to his "audit" report, including a section on "destruction of evidence." However, that phrase does not appear in the final report he gave the Senate Republicans who enabled his work.

Uncovered: Previously hidden Cyber Ninjas texts revealed in Republic records lawsuit over 'audit'

Lambert and Speckin worked together on voter fraud claims in other states. Lambert referenced Speckin's Michigan-based firm, Speckin Forensics LLC, in a lawsuit challenging election results in Pennsylvania, claiming the firm discovered vulnerabilities in Dominion voting machines.

She is accused in a separate lawsuit of turning to Speckin after another cybersecurity firm analyzed voting machine data and reported finding no evidence of fraud. The firm, XRVision of New York, claims Lambert solicited them to lie about findings and report the analysis found cheat codes in the data and signs of hacking.

When they refused, she defamed them, the lawsuit alleges.

XRVision's lawsuit says when the firm turned Lambert down, she turned to Speckin.

Logan's report to the Senate Republicans mentioned "printing irregularities" on ballots but noted they did not favor one candidate or another.

Maricopa County election officials responded point by point to Logan's final report. With regard to the supposed irregular ballots, the county said that its ballots are printed by a variety of printers and that does not affect their legitimacy.

Further, county officials said Logan's final report made seven false claims, 23 inaccurate claims, and nine misleading claims.

How Logan's messages were revealed to the public

Logan had to disclose his messages with Lambert in response to a public records lawsuit filed by The Republic in 2021 as the "audit" was underway. After more than a year of fighting a losing court battle, Logan chose to black out, or redact, many of those text messages when he finally submitted them under court orders late last year.

But some of Logan's black boxes hiding his correspondence were easily deleted. The redactions can be removed multiple ways, including by simply deleting them with PDF editing software.

The newly exposed messages paint a fuller picture of how ardent Trump supporters pulled the strings on his work.

The hidden messages first were uncovered by a trio of data analysts known as The Audit Guys.

"The thing that continues to strike me is the effort Logan took to hide messages," said analyst Larry Moore, who is the founder of the election technology company Clear Ballot Group and one of The Audit Guys.

"He deleted messages. He cherry-picked them," Moore said. "He went to extraordinary measures to make sure his texts could not be read."

Who is Stefanie Lambert? She obtained voting data in 4 states

When Logan presented his results to Senate Republicans in September 2021, which was broadcast live, viewers had no idea that Lambert played a pivotal role with Logan behind the scenes.

A Michigan grand jury in August indicted Lambert on multiple conspiracy charges, including "undue possession" of a voting machine in that state. She pleaded not guilty.

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

Lambert tapped Logan to analyze voting equipment in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania shortly after the Nov. 3, 2020, election. He is named but not charged in the Michigan and Georgia cases.

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

Cyber Ninjas' money woes preoccupy 'audit' leader

Logan, who throughout the "audit" complained that he was running out of money and might not be able to finish it, relied on a variety of ethically questionable sources to fund what the Senate called an independent and nonpartisan recount.

Previously released messages showed that right-wing personality Christina Bobb helped him raise money. She now works as a lawyer for Trump and volunteered for Trump before the "audit."

Patrick Byrne, former Overstock CEO and ardent Trump supporter, also helped to bankroll the "audit" through a nonprofit.

At one point, Logan texted Lambert that he would have to shut down the "audit" for lack of funds, the newly revealed texts show.

"I'm getting really close to having to make the hard decision of just shutting down because we can't pay people. If this is God's will, its God's bill; but I don't know how much deeper in debt I can go in faith that we'll receive more funds," he wrote her in June 2021, as the "audit" dragged on longer than expected.

She urged him to hold on. She set up a new website in July to solicit donations for him, and the two shared a text string as they watched the money roll in.

“200k!!!!” Lambert wrote. “You are almost there.”

Rising bill: Taxpayer costs continue to climb nearly three years after Arizona Senate audit. Here's how

Two months later, just before delivering his final report, Logan appeared to have a tiff with Pennsylvania businessman Bill Bachenberg, a wealthy Trump supporter who was accused in the XRVision case of providing Lambert a $1 million line of credit toward election efforts like the Arizona "audit."

On Sept. 22, 2021, Logan told Lambert that Bachenberg had threatened him over including data from an election conspiracy theorist in his report. The information was left out.

"I know Bill is your primary financer (sic), and he clearly thinks I'm a moron," Logan wrote. "That probably means you don't get more money if you're with me, and I know you're not in a place where you can be choosy right now :‐). FYI, he started threatening me today and calling me names ..."

Bachenberg served as co-chair of a Pennsylvia committee to reelect Trump and helped establish the state's alternate slate of electors, who falsely certified Trump won the state in 2020.

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

Logan and Lambert appeared to finish this conversation with a phone call.

Video of ballots: Logan admits he violated Senate contract

Logan in the newly revealed text messages also said he likely violated the terms of his Senate contract and worried he could get kicked off the "audit."

His concerns were tied to the election conspiracy movie "The Deep Rig" and the fact that cameramen shot video of actual ballots.

Logan was adamant about trying to stop the premiere of the movie from including footage of him.

Previously released messages showed that Logan fought bitterly with film financier Byrne and movie producer Steve Lucescu about his appearance in the movie, which offered incoherent conjecture about the 2020 election being stolen. ("Awful," is how Byrne described the movie in private messages uncovered by The Republic, adding it was "like an Ancient Aliens meets Michael Clayton.”)

When Logan submitted his private messages to The Republic under court order, he redacted those that showed perhaps his primary concern with the film: He had allowed a camera crew into Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, and those people did not sign nondisclosure agreements as required by the Senate.

"That technically puts me in breach of contract. Everyone that was able to see a ballot I was supposed to background check and get an NDA," Logan messaged Lambert.

He fretted about what would happen when the movie was released.

Logan’s private messages show he tried to delay the release and get his interview removed so he didn’t lose his contract. The producers removed him from the film only after its premiere, which included the Logan footage.

Newly released messages also show Lambert had legal concerns that his appearance in the film, which embraced the idea the nation's election had been stolen, could be considered treasonous.

“They could lump you into sedition just like they lumped those people from Jan 6 into sedition,” she warned him in a previously redacted discussion.

Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @UtilityReporter.

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

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Texts reveal attorney pushed false election fraud claims in Arizona