The group hired to perform a controversial “audit” of the 2020 presidential election results that favored Democrat Joe Biden in Maricopa County, Arizona, is closing down, according to published reports.
State officials contracted the Florida company to do the audit in the wake of charges by former President Donald Trump and supporters challenging Mr. Biden’s narrow victory in the state’s largest county.
“Cyber Ninjas is shutting down,” Rod Thomson, a representative for the company, said in a statement late Thursday. “All employees have been let go.”
The U.K.-based Guardian newspaper was the first to report the shutdown was imminent earlier in the day.
The news came a day after Maricopa Superior Court Judge John Hannah ruled that Cyber Ninjas was in contempt of court after failing to turn over documents to the Arizona Republic newspaper, and was ordered to pay $50,000 per day until it provided the requested records.
The newspaper sued the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas and the Republican-controlled state Senate in June for public records related to their controversial probe.
Senate Republicans hired Cyber Ninjas last year to lead the effort to determine whether there was any merit to Mr. Trump’s allegations of massive fraud and election malfeasance.
Doug Logan, the group’s CEO, had previously touted stolen election conspiracy theories.
The undertaking dragged on for months and generated a series of colorful headlines about auditors searching for bamboo fibers on ballots and running them under UV lights.
The final report, released in September, provided no proof the election in Maricopa County was stolen from Mr. Trump.
Despite the finding, Maricopa County officials this week released a 93-page point-by-point response to the audit, saying most of the findings by Cyber Ninjas and other critics of the 2020 vote were misleading, inaccurate or false.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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