Kelli Ward, Charlie Kirk had little to say to Jan. 6 investigators about 2020 election efforts

After Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, told a national television audience there was “no evidence of widespread voter fraud” immediately after the 2020 presidential election, the chair of the state’s GOP reacted with evident disgust at his lack of partisan side-taking.

“What are these people on ‘our side’ doing here in Arizona??” Kelli Ward wrote to Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.

Ward offered no explanation for her correspondence with Meadows — or anything else — during a March deposition with investigators with the select House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Instead, Ward followed her attorneys’ advice and repeatedly invoked her 5th Amendment rights.

On Wednesday, the Democratic-led, bipartisan committee released transcripts of its interviews, given under oath, of dozens of people who helped cast doubt on the 2020 election.

Ward and fellow Arizona resident Charlie Kirk, executive director of Turning Point USA and its politically involved arm, Turning Point Action, were among the depositions released.

Kirk also invoked his 5th Amendment rights when asked questions suggesting his organizations only participated in busing people to and from Washington for Trump’s rally on the Ellipse on the day of the riot after someone expressed an interest in making a $1.5 million contribution to them.

Kirk’s team provided the committee with 8,000 pages of records in response to its requests. A spokesman for Turning Point USA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.

Days after her earlier text message to Meadows, Ward complained again to him after Trump’s legal team in Arizona dropped a lawsuit that would not have changed enough votes to erase his loss to President Joe Biden in the state and risked financial sanctions for further pressing the case.

“WTH?” Ward wrote to Meadows in a shorthand usually understood to mean “What the hell?”

While Ward didn’t answer the committee’s questions, the questions themselves suggest the way the panel viewed her role in an effort to sidestep certified election results to allow Trump to remain in office.

The committee suggests that a plan to use “alternate electors” in select states started as early as September 2020. Ward was among the Arizona Republicans who signed and submitted documents submitted to federal authorities falsely stating that Trump won the state and its electoral votes.

Ward pushed baseless conspiracy theories backed by Trump’s lawyers and advisers and, at least once, sent them a new one, the committee implied.

Ward passed along wrong information from Sidney Powell, who advised Trump for a time and maintained the election was riddled with widespread fraud, that “substantial sums of money had been given to family members of State officials who bought” election software.

At another point, Ward sent Meadows the name and phone number of Bobby Piton, whom she described as “the algorithm guy” who had “cracked the whole election fraud.” Piton is a mathematician who helped push baseless claims that 300,000 “fake people” voted in Arizona in 2020 and lost the Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race in Illinois in 2022.

Ward declined to discuss whether she had talked to Trump’s lawyers or campaign team at the White House about plans to seize voting machines or imposing martial law.

For subscribers:White House phone calls, baseless fraud charges: The origins of the Arizona election review

Another deposition, involving political strategist Alexander Bruesewitz, raised questions about Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., coordinating with those involved in the “Stop the Steal” effort in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Bruesewitz also declined to answer questions, which seemed to suggest Gosar may have been part of a “Stop the Steal caucus” in Congress. Hours into the riot, Gosar texted a group that included Bruesewitz to say they remained in lockdown, another question suggested.

Another witness was Phil Waldron, who cast himself as an election security expert and took part in the White House-led pressure campaign on Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa.

Waldron sat in on a Dec. 1, 2020, meeting at the Legislature intended to convince a reluctant Bowers to have lawmakers choose Trump electors, rather than the Biden electors chosen by voters. He was also present for a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House attended by several members of Congress, including Gosar and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.

A question by investigators suggested at the White House meeting Waldron wanted Trump to “issue orders to involve national security agencies in your search for evidence of election fraud.” Waldron declined to answer the question.

He declined to confirm that his Allied Security Operations Group sought to take part in the partisan state Senate-ordered review of Maricopa County ballots in 2021. He also would not say who put him in touch with Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, and state Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, both of whom were vocal supporters of the ballot review.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kelli Ward and Charlie Kirk had little to say in Capitol riot probe