The January 6 committee is about to show its work. Here's what you ...

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Washington (CNN) More than 500 days removed from the violent attack on the US Capitol, the committee investigating it is ready to show its work.

The House select committee will hold its first public hearing this week, on June 9 at 8 p.m. ET. Sources told CNN this hearing will be a broad overview of the panel's 10-month investigation and set the stage for subsequent hearings, which are expected to cover certain topics or themes.

While the setup of the hearings has been a work in progress and evolving, sources note, the presentations will likely feature video clips from January 6, as well as some of the roughly 1,000 interviews the committee has conducted behind closed doors.

In recent days, new information about the insurrection has also emerged. The New York Times reported Friday that former Pence chief of staff Marc Short warned Pence's lead Secret Service agent the day before the attack that there could be a threat to the then-vice president. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN that The New York Times' account of the conversation was accurate.

In the meantime, here's what we're expecting from the committee's hearings.

Will there be new information?

Yes, at least according to an advisory from the committee released last week.

"The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power," the panel said.

What can people expect?

Committee members have teased that the hearings could be focused on former President Donald Trump's direct role in undermining the election results.

Broadly, the panel has been working toward a thesis that Trump's obsession with the election loss and his peddling of false claims about the results is what laid the groundwork for the violent and deadly riot at the Capitol.

Ahead of the hearing, Rep. Liz Cheney , one of just two Republicans on the committee, has asserted that the attack was part of an "extremely well-organized" conspiracy.

"It is extremely broad. It's extremely well organized. It's really chilling," Cheney told CBS "Sunday Morning" when asked if the attack amounted to a conspiracy, adding: "I have not learned anything that has made me less concerned."

Democratic Rep. David Cicilline told CNN Saturday that "disturbing" new evidence would be presented at the upcoming hearings, stressing the significance of this process.

"There will be, I think, substantial evidence that really demonstrates the coordination and the planning and the effort, despite the fact that they understood that Donald Trump lost the election and even once the insurrection began and the violence began, there were ongoing efforts to persuade the former President to stop the violence and call on folks to go home, and he refused to do it," Cicilline told CNN

The lawmaker added: "I think the American people are going to learn facts about the planning and execution of this that will be very disturbing."

Former Virginia Rep. Denver Riggleman, who worked as a technical adviser for the House select committee, similarly said Sunday that people will be "absolutely surprised" by what will be presented.

What witnesses might appear?

CNN has learned that two people directly tied to former Vice President Mike Pence are among those who have received invitations to appear. Former Pence chief counsel Greg Jacob and former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig have received outreach from the committee about their possible testimony.

In addition to Luttig and Jacob, CNN has learned Short is expected to be called to testify.

All three men have already been interviewed privately by committee investigators. In some cases, their testimony has already been used by the committee as part of court filings and subpoena requests of other potential witnesses in their investigation.

How will the hearings compare to Trump's impeachment proceedings?

One source close to the committee told CNN that the panel has drawn on experiences from Trump's two impeachment proceedings. Those hearings have served as a model of both what to do and not to do.

A key difference to typical committee proceedings is that the January 6 hearings will not feature the voices of prominent Trump supporters in Congress.

The panel's only two Republican members, Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are both outspoken critics of Trump.

How is Trump preparing?

The former President has made it clear he is looking for cover from his closest allies around the upcoming public hearings.

Read this report from CNN's Melanie Zanona, Zachary Cohen and Ryan Nobles. Trump's team has communicated to some of his most loyal acolytes on Capitol Hill that the former President wants people vigorously defending him and pushing back on the select committee while the public hearings play out, according to GOP sources familiar with the request.

But part of the challenge for Republicans — especially after they decided to boycott the select committee — is that they have little insight into what the investigation has uncovered and what might be revealed in the public hearings, making it harder for them to settle on a precise strategy.

How should Americans approach these hearings?

With as little emotion as possible, journalist Bob Woodward told CNN

"I think we need to say: 'This is what we know. This is what we don't know.' Be very, very careful and be as unemotional, frankly -- it's difficult, but be as unemotional as possible here," he said.

January 6 committee finalizing witness list and topics ahead of high ...

Washington (CNN) A month before it kicks off a series of high-profile public hearings , the House select committee investigating January 6 is still finalizing its witness list and preparing to reach out to people it wants to testify publicly.

The first hearing, set for June 9, will be a broad overview of the panel's 10-month investigation and set the stage for subsequent hearings, which are expected to cover certain topics or themes including what President Donald Trump was doing as the riot unfolded, the pushing of baseless election fraud claims that motivated rioters, how law enforcement responded to the attack, and the organizing and financing behind the January 6 rallies , sources tell CNN.

While the setup of the hearings is still a work in progress and evolving, sources note, the presentations will likely feature video clips from January 6, as well as some of the nearly 1,000 interviews the committee has conducted behind closed doors. That could help the committee share more testimony, as well as deal with potentially recalcitrant witnesses.

The committee may begin reaching out to potential witnesses as soon as next week, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Among the witnesses whose testimony was videotaped were members of Trump's family, including recent interviews with Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

A representative for Donald Trump Jr. declined to comment. A representative for Ivanka Trump and Kushner did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for the committee also declined to comment about next month's hearings.

Multiple people who have been interviewed by the committee tell CNN they expect to be called as first-hand fact witnesses to the events on or around January 6, though none of them say they've been notified by the committee yet. Those people include former members of the Trump administration, former White House officials and rally planners.

At least one fact witness who has been deposed by the committee behind closed doors already told the panel they will refuse to testify publicly if asked, according to a source familiar with the matter. Other witnesses, including rally organizers, have indicated they may be willing to participate in public hearings under a certain set of ground rules, two additional sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Among the key witnesses who sources say are likely to be called for the public hearings are former Justice Department officials Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue, the interim attorney general and deputy attorney general during the final month of the Trump administration. Both have testified to the committee about Trump's efforts to pressure the Justice Department to investigate unfounded allegations of voter fraud after the 2020 election.

Neither Rosen nor Donoghue have been asked to testify at a public hearing, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Also expected to be on the final witness list for public hearings are top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence , including his former chief of staff Marc Short and former general counsel Greg Jacob.

It's unclear if the committee will ask Pence to appear for public hearings, but two people familiar with the investigation say they would be very surprised if he testified.

"We understand the interest in talking to the vice president, and we haven't made decisions at this point," committee member Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California told CNN's John Berman on Tuesday morning. "But I can tell you that we continue to receive ample evidence that will help us in this discussion.

In January, the committee's chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, told CNN the panel wanted to hear directly from Pence, but last month Thompson walked that back

"There's no effort on the part of the committee to get him to come in" Thompson said.

Former President Trump is also not expected to be asked to testify, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. Both sources indicated that they did not think Trump would cooperate in a productive manner, and doubt that he would agree to testify under oath in a public setting.

However, the committee is interested in calling back for the public hearings former White House staffers who observed Trump during the attack. The committee has long sought to determine what the former president did and did not do during the riot

All-day meetings to sort through mountains of evidence

Members of the House Select committee Rep. Zoe Lofgren, left, Rep. Bennie Thompson, center, and Rep. Liz Cheney, right, during a business meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday, March 28, 2022.

Along with its nearly 1,000 witness interviews, the committee has issued hundreds of subpoenas, obtained thousands of phone records and text messages, and poured over stacks of documents won in hard-fought court battles , including the White House records secured from the National Archives after a lawsuit went to the Supreme Court. Turning that work into compelling hearings for the American public will be critical to the committee's overall success.

Planning sessions have become so demanding, committee staffers have been locked in all-day meetings to sort through key details including witnesses and hearing topics. Some of the panel's nine members have instructed their personal offices to clear their schedules for the whole month of June.

Each of the committee's nine members has been assigned to lead presentations of different topic areas, similar to how impeachment managers led certain portions of the two impeachment proceedings against Trump.

One source close to the committee told CNN that the panel has drawn on experiences from Trump's two impeachment proceedings. Those hearings have served as a model of both what to do and not to do.

A key difference to typical committee proceedings is that the January 6 hearings will not feature the voices of prominent Trump supporters in Congress. The panel's only two Republican members, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are both outspoken critics of Trump.

The committee is still considering whether to subpoena any House Republicans who have refused to cooperate voluntarily, and if the list of lawmakers it wants to talk to should expand.

Hearings will feature different teams' work

The June hearings will incorporate the work of the panel's investigative teams, which have been designated different colors.

One of those teams, the gold team, has examined efforts by Trump and his allies to pressure Justice Department officials, as well as those at the state level, to overturn the results of the election. Thompson told CNN in January that the hearings would likely include testimony from state election officials, as well as former top members of the Trump Justice Department.

"They will be a combination of exhibits, staff testimony and outside witnesses," Thompson told CNN last week. "Some of them will be people that people have not heard from before, and I think their testimony will be on point as to why this investigation was so important."

The main goal of the committee in holding the hearings is to show that even though Trump was told repeatedly there was no election fraud, he continued to push forward with his campaign to overturn the election.

Looming over the June hearings will be a number of questions. Chief among them is whether the panel intends to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department, either for Trump or anyone else.

In March, a federal judge said that it was "more likely than not" that Trump attempted to corruptly disrupt the January 6 congressional certification of the 2020 election. A key goal for the hearings, sources say, will be shedding light on what Trump was doing as the riot unfolded, including establishing a timeline for the 187 minutes between when the violence began and when Trump finally released a video telling rioters to go home.

Asked by CNN's Berman on Tuesday if he believes Trump's inaction during the riot constitutes a dereliction of his duty as commander in chief, Aguilar said that he did.

"Yes. I think that the president had every opportunity to walk into the press room, to tweet, to talk to the American public, and to tell these insurrectionists to go home, to tell them we're going to have a peaceful transition of power," Aguilar told Berman. "That's a hallmark of democracy. And each and every step of the way he chose not to do that."

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Annie Grayer
Ryan Nobles
Jamie Gangel
Zachary Cohen

What to watch for at the House's first prime-time hearing on the ...

CNN —

The House select committee investigating January 6 will use its first prime-time public hearing on Thursday to make the case that former President Donald Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and prevent the transition of power, according to the committee.

The panel will reveal new evidence that aides say will help “connect the dots” between Trump’s election lies, his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and the violence that unfolded on January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop the counting of electoral votes.

Aides outlined the first public hearing, which will take place in prime time, as the committee’s opening salvo – previewing what’s to come in the month’s worth of planned hearings.

Here’s what to expect:

New video and attempt to draw a direct line between Trump and violence

Thursday, the committee plans to show previously unseen video of testimony collected during closed depositions that includes interviews with Trump White House aides, campaign officials and members of Trumps’ family.

Committee aides said they also plan to show video to remind the public what happened on January 6 when the Capitol was overrun by a violent mob. “We’ll bring the American people back to the reality of that violence and remind them of just how horrific it was,” one aide said.

The committee said the “vast majority” of the video that it plans to show has not been seen publicly before.

That video will be supplemented by live witness testimony from two witnesses who had an up-close view of the rioters: US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was among the first injured by rioters on January 6, and documentarian Nick Quested, who had unique access to members of militia groups who took part in the attack.

The committee will seek to use that evidence to draw a direct line between Trump and the groups who perpetrated the violence on January 6. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney will make opening statements and they will be the ones to question the witnesses Thursday, aides said.

While the hearings won’t be the committee’s final word – a report is planned for later in the year – it’s the panel’s highest-profile opportunity to convince the public whose views have hardened about why it should care about what happened on January 6. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are preparing their own counter-programming to attack the committee’s work as a political attack on Trump.

Trump’s pressure campaign and inaction on January 6

Thursday’s hearing is the first in a series planned this month to illustrate what the panel’s months-long investigation into January 6 has uncovered. Aides said that the opening hearing would serve to lay out a summary of the committee’s findings, which all points back to Trump himself.

The two witnesses who will testify on Thursday will play a key role in that opening statement.

“We expect that they’re going to recount their experiences, particularly what they saw and heard from the rioters who tried to occupy the Capitol, of the rioters who tried to stop the transfer of power,” committee aides told reporters.

Future hearings are expected to build on what happens Thursday night. CNN has previously reported that former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his then-deputy, Richard Donoghue, have been invited by the committee to testify during one of its public hearings.

Rosen and Donoghue have previously spoken with the committee behind closed doors about Trump’s pressure campaign against top Justice Department officials to investigate baseless claims of election fraud.

Testimony provided by individuals close to former Vice President Mike Pence is also expected to be featured, in some way, during the series of hearings. Trump and his allies mounted a pressure campaign against Pence as it sought to convince him to help overturn the election outcome and then-aides to the former vice president have detailed concerns they had about his safety leading up to, and on, January 6.

The panel is also expected to focus on what Trump was doing, and not doing, as the violence on Capitol Hill was unfolding – linking the former President’s inaction to his role at the center of a broader conspiracy.

The committee has in its possession video footage from depositions with former Trump officials and members of the Trump family, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who were with the President on January 6 and can speak to what he was doing that day. Some of that footage will be revealed during the first hearing but may also appear during later presentations.

Video from Trump’s inner circle

The committee conducted more than 1,000 closed-door depositions as part of its investigation, including with several members of Trump’s inner circle: daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner and senior White House aides Hope Hicks and Stephen Miller.

Now those depositions are likely to play a key role in the committee’s public hearings – even if Trump’s allies aren’t planning to testify publicly, according to committee aides.

Aides said there weren’t currently plans to release the transcripts of the depositions, meaning the hearings will only include snippets of what was said behind closed doors. Still, the video could provide new insight into what members of Trump’s family thought about the former President’s push to overturn the 2020 election.

Committee aides also signaled that Thursday’s hearing will include new video of the violent attack on the Capitol itself. Video of the riot created some of the most dramatic moments of the 2021 Senate impeachment trial, and the aides say most of the video the committee plans to show at the hearings has not been seen previously.

What will be absent: The opposition

While Thursday’s January 6 committee hearing will have all the trappings of a typical congressional hearing – a chair, opening statements, witnesses – it will be missing a key component: any opposition.

Aides said Thompson, a Democrat, and Cheney, a Republican, will do most of the talking during Thursday’s opening hearing, showcasing how the committee is the product of a bipartisan effort.

But while the January 6 committee is made up of five Democrats and two Republicans, they’re all working toward the same goal of showing how Trump was at the center of the attack on the Capitol.

That will give the committee more control over what happens on Thursday. There won’t be interruptions, outbursts or grandstanding from opponents of the committee, like there were during the House’s 2019 impeachment hearings. But the setup also means the committee runs the risk that Thursday ends up feeling more like a lengthy presentation than a congressional hearing.

For Trump and his allies – who have repeatedly attacked the committee as its hearings have approached – criticisms of the hearings will have to come from the outside. That’s not to say they won’t have a platform: Fox does not plan to air the hearing Thursday, so the channel’s conservative hosts can offer counter-programming in real time.

Zachary Cohen Jeremy Herb Ryan Nobles Annie Grayer

Here's the January 6 committee's strategy for 2022 - CNNPolitics

Washington (CNN) As the first anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol approaches, the House committee investigating January 6 faces its biggest challenge yet: proving allegations that there was a coordinated effort behind the insurrection and convincing the American people that former President Donald Trump was complicit.

To do so, the House select committee is sketching out its strategy for 2022, including preparing for a series of public hearings intended to address Trump's continued false claims that the election was somehow fraudulent.

Envisioned as prime-time broadcasts, some of those hearings would focus on the two months between the 2020 election and the January 6 riot and will likely include testimony from state election officials, as well as former top members of the Trump Justice Department.

The hearings are expected to be followed by an interim report over the summer and a final report in the fall ahead of November's pivotal midterm elections. The goal will be to establish a definitive narrative about what happened on January 6 and propose legislative recommendations to prevent such an attack from happening again.

"In this great country of ours, I'm convinced that sunlight and truth [are] the best disinfectant when you're dealing with a lie," committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told CNN. "Hopefully we will provide the proper disinfectant for what's happened on January 6, so that people will understand it."

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack, speaks to reporters after a business meeting on Capitol Hill on December 13, 2021.

For any of this to be successful, the committee must overcome a series of obstacles, not the least of which is skepticism from a broad swath of the American public that holds on to the false belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. The committee is also fighting nearly a dozen legal challenges by key Trump allies, as well as Trump himself, who has asked the Supreme Court to block access to his White House records.

Despite this, committee members say the investigation is in full swing.

They've interviewed more than 300 witnesses and collected some 35,000 records. House investigators are subpoenaing bank records to follow the money behind the pro-Trump rallies that preceded the insurrection, and they're poring over texts and other communications to examine the role of Trump and his allies.

The committee is also studying how Trump's actions stoked violence on January 6 -- and whether his inaction as the Capitol riot dragged on for hours amounted to a "dereliction of duty."

Committee members revealed this week that they have " firsthand testimony " that Trump was watching the insurrection on television as staffers, friends and even his own children implored him to stop the riot.

"Any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten, as his supporters were invading the Capitol of the United States, is clearly unfit for future office," GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who serves as vice chair of the panel, said on ABC's "This Week.'

Members of the panel must also decide whether to engage in a charged fight by subpoenaing their own Republican colleagues who refuse to cooperate . Thompson told CNN that decision will be made "in the next few weeks."

"There are still some critical questions that remain for us, and the closer we get to Donald Trump, the more we are finding," committee member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, told CNN. "I think we've painted two-thirds of a picture. The broad strokes are there, the outline of all the major objects are there, but there's some extremely important details that still remain to be filled."

The most important of those details pertain to the question of coordination between the White House and what ultimately unfolded on January 6.

Thompson told CNN this week that the three-hour delay before the National Guard received permission to send reinforcements on January 6 "was, in my opinion, by design."

"When people are breaking into the United States Capitol, it should not take long for reinforcements to arrive," Thompson said. "Three hours is just absolutely too long."

Military leaders have maintained there was no delay. It took time to move Guard members from traffic duty to riot control, they say, especially after DC officials had repeatedly said they did not need more National Guard forces ahead of the riot.

Thompson also said he believes the effort to spread the lie of a stolen election "was part of an organized plan."

Details of the work

Much of the committee's work has happened behind closed doors, in an office building on the edge of the Capitol complex. Depositions are not always announced. Subpoenas are not always made public. Most of the committee's 40-plus staffers keep a low profile.

The committee is divided into five investigative teams, each with its own color designation.

The green team is tasked with tracking money, including the funding behind the rallies, as well as untangling the complex web of financial ties between rally organizers and entities affiliated with Trump or his campaign, according to multiple sources. That team has made considerable progress , sources tell CNN.

The blue team is focused on how government agencies prepared ahead of January 6 and responded to the attack. The gold team is examining efforts by Trump and his allies to pressure Department of Justice officials, as well as those at the state level, to overturn the results of the election. The red team is investigating rally planners and the "Stop the Steal" movement. The purple team is digging into domestic violence and extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, 3 Percenters and Oath Keepers.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaks with Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., by his side as the House committee investigating January 6 meets on October 19, 2021.

In interviews with CNN, committee members and staffers describe what has been an all-consuming amount of work, including spending nights and weekends keeping up with the volume of documents coming in. Thompson said that on many weekends when he is deer hunting with his grandson in Mississippi he takes his iPad along.

"It's challenging," said Thompson. "I accepted the appointment from the speaker, and you know sometimes family and other folks kind of look at you like have you lost your mind."

What we've learned so far

Though much of the committee's investigation has been done in secret, significant information has begun to emerge. Most notably, last month the panel made public a batch of text messages obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The messages include revealing communications from some of Trump's closest allies and members of his family.

Cheney told ABC News that the panel has "firsthand testimony" that during the attack, Trump's daughter and then-senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, asked him to call off the riot. Trump didn't make a statement until 187 minutes after the violence started.

In one batch of subpoenas, the committee revealed a direct connection between Trump and organizers of the January 6 rallies that preceded the attack, stating Trump had met with organizers in his private dining room off the Oval Office to discuss the rally on the Ellipse and who would be speaking.

President Donald Trump speaks at the "Stop The Steal" Rally on January 6, 2021, in Washington.

Sources tell CNN that the committee is also receiving the communications records of more than 100 people , including former Trump officials and associates, that show contacts before, during and after the attack on the Capitol.

The panel is still hoping to receive documents from the National Archives to fill in holes about what happened at the White House leading up to and on the day of the attack, including drafts of previously unseen videos that Trump recorded prior to releasing his video message at the White House on January 6.

Facing obstruction from Trump's biggest allies

The committee still faces an uphill battle in getting some of Trump's closest allies to cooperate. Among them are some of the members' own colleagues, including Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jim Jordan of Ohio, both of whom turned down the committee's voluntary request to speak with them.

In the new year, members of the panel will have to decide not only whether to subpoena their colleagues, but also whether to expand the list of Republican lawmakers.

Thompson told CNN directly that he was not afraid to subpoena lawmakers if it came to that.

In December, the House referred Meadows to the Justice Department for possible criminal contempt charges. Trump ally Steve Bannon has already been indicted for contempt of Congress and has a trial date for July . (He has pleaded not guilty.) Former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, who pursued unfounded claims of voter fraud in the weeks after the November election, along with a growing list of others, has informed the panel he will plead the Fifth Amendment.

"We're very serious about trying to get Meadows to testify to us. And we're very serious about trying to get Jeffrey Clark to testify," Raskin told CNN. "But the closer you get to Donald Trump, the more afraid they are of both Donald Trump and also of being criminally prosecuted, so they're turning to the Fifth Amendment."

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who serves on the panel, told CNN, "I don't think there's any question that there's some coordination among those who've been subpoenaed as an effort to obstruct the investigation."

Committee members remain steadfast that despite these stonewalling tactics, there are still plenty of ways to build out their investigation. Their swift criminal contempt actions, they believe, will also convince others to talk.

"It's only a very handful of people who want to risk jail time and fines for contempt of Congress who are obstructing our process," Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, who serves on the panel, told CNN.

Building a case before the midterms

The committee likely has until November to make its case to the American public. If Republicans take over the House, the investigation will almost certainly stop.

Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the only other Republican committee member besides Cheney, is not running for reelection. Murphy, whose district was redrawn, has also announced her retirement. Cheney faces a tough primary, while Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria will have to run in a competitive district in Virginia.

"It's certainly a consideration that if the House of Representatives would change hands in 2022 that the other party would not want to continue this work," Luria said. "They would not want these things exposed. They want to just brush it away."

Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., speaks in the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, on July 27, 2021, at the Cannon House Office Building.

With a majority of Republican voters still doubting the legitimacy of Biden's election win, the committee faces tough hurdles in making its case.

"Will it change minds? I think it's hard to say," said former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who is a CNN contributor. "As we know, the country is deeply polarized and tribalized, and some people won't let new facts change their hardened opinions."

Some members of the panel have suggested the investigation could result in evidence related to criminal activity by Trump, but that's not the committee's focus.

Legal scholar and Harvard professor Laurence Tribe told CNN that while the committee does not have the power to prosecute any crimes it may find, it can put pressure on the Justice Department to act.

"It can't ensure that it will happen, but it can certainly increase the likelihood and create a kind of public momentum that will make it harder for the Justice Department just to sit there and twiddle its thumbs," he said.

Tribe laid out specific legislative recommendations the panel can make, such as specifying that acting corruptly to impede or obstruct the electoral vote count is a federal crime and protecting the integrity of the process to certify the next president.

A year later, the violence of the day, along with the stakes of the investigation, still weighs on the committee.

"It is a tremendous sense of responsibility," Raskin said of what it means to him to serve on the panel. "Everywhere we go, people tell us that this is the most important investigation they can remember at least since the Watergate investigation. So there's a high burden of hope being placed upon us."

Luria said that when she walks through the empty Rotunda of the Capitol late at night, she often reflects on the violent and troubling incidents that happened in that very hallway.

"It's incredibly sobering," she said.

Marc Short: Mike Pence's former chief of staff testifies in House ...

(CNN) Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, quietly testified before the House select committee investigating January 6 last week in response to a subpoena , sources tell CNN, in the most significant sign to date that Pence's team is cooperating with the probe.

Short, who was with Pence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and participated in a critical White House meeting on January 4, 2021, is seen as a potentially crucial witness in the committee's investigation as the panel pieces together the pressure campaign then-President Donald Trump and his allies waged to try to convince Pence not to certify the presidential election.

Short testified before the select committee in person last Wednesday in a lengthy session, according to a source familiar with the matter. Short had previously supplied a limited number of documents that were subpoenaed by the committee, according to one source, including a memo from Trump aide Johnny McEntee comparing Trump to Thomas Jefferson. It's also customary that witnesses hand over more documents when they testify, according to another source familiar with the matter.

Short's testimony, obtained after months of discussions between his attorney Emmet Flood and lawyers on the committee -- as well as a subpoena -- comes as the panel still does not know whether Pence himself will testify.

Short declined to comment. A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.

While the committee has had early, informal discussions with Pence's legal team and hopes he will cooperate in some way, multiple sources told CNN that Pence would prefer aides like Short act as the former vice president's "proxy" so Pence himself does not have to appear.

The prospect of Pence appearing before the January 6 committee underscores the dilemma facing the former vice president, whose political ambitions are intertwined with his strained relationship with Trump. The former President still blames Pence for not trying to overturn the election results in Congress -- and Pence has faced a backlash from Trump's base for his role on January 6.

As recently as this weekend, Trump was still blaming Pence , including in a written statement where he bluntly admitted had been trying to use Pence to overturn the election result. "He could have overturned the Election!" Trump said of Pence.

Pence is seeking to walk a tightrope between affirming that he did the right thing on January 6 and the fact that he will need the support of Trump's base, which falsely believes the 2020 election was stolen, to gain traction in a 2024 Republican presidential primary. Pence has been vague about how much he will cooperate with the committee, and his advisers have pushed back in the media after committee members praised Pence as a "hero" and "patriot."

"This is all a political calculation because he wants to run for president. Somehow he thinks he can straddle and do the right thing but not alienate the base," one source said.

Pence may respond to Trump's comment about him having the right to "overturn" the 2020 election later this week when the former vice president speaks before a Federalist Society gathering in Florida, according to a source familiar with Pence's thinking.

"There was a lot of pressure, but we always knew we were doing the right thing," said a source close to Pence.

While Pence's aides have spoken to the committee, his allies have signaled that when it comes to executive privilege, there's an inclination to remain deferential to Trump. According to multiple sources, the focus on privilege is one way to send a message to Trump and his base that Pence and his aides are not crossing the former President.

Committee sources, however, say privilege should not become an issue with Pence and his team. "Discussions up to this point have been about what questions and what answers could be asked and given without running into any potential privilege roadblocks," said one source familiar with the discussions.

In addition, the committee has made a point publicly of saying that executive privilege can be pierced by criminal activity.

Richard Cullen, who was Pence's lawyer before joining the administration of GOP Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, began initial negotiations about how Pence might cooperate with Tim Heaphy, the committee's chief investigator. Heaphy used to be a partner in Cullen's firm.

With Cullen leaving Pence's team to join the Virginia governor's office, it's unclear who is now representing Pence.

Earlier this month, Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson told NPR he expected the committee would invite Pence to testify by the end of the month, though the Mississippi Democrat later told CNN he hoped Pence would "do the right thing and come forward and voluntarily," while noting the committee had not yet formally asked.

In addition to Short, the committee has already questioned retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, his former national security adviser who was with Trump at the White House on January 6, as well as retired Judge Michael Luttig, whose tweets on Pence's role on January 6 were cited by Pence in his letter released the morning of January 6 announcing he would certify the election. Another top Pence aide, Greg Jacob, is a potential witness.

The committee is interested in piecing together how Trump pressured Pence when he and his team called on the vice president to throw out presidential electors while Congress certified Joe Biden's 2020 election win.

The committee cited Kellogg's testimony in a letter earlier this month seeking testimony from Ivanka Trump, saying Kellogg had testified about how Trump had attempted to coerce Pence to try to overturn the election on a phone call the morning of January 6.

JUST WATCHED 'He must be kidding': Lawmaker reacts after Trump goes after Pence Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'He must be kidding': Lawmaker reacts after Trump goes after Pence 03:30

"You're not tough enough to make the call," Kellogg testified that Trump told Pence.

Short was with Pence at the Capitol on January 6 when rioters were chanting "hang Mike Pence" and Trump tweeted, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution."

Short was also at Pence's side in the Oval Office for a pivotal January 4 meeting when Trump and attorney John Eastman tried to convince the then-vice president he could overturn the presidential election results in Congress on January 6. Eastman had drafted a memo arguing Pence could throw out states' results in a scheme to push the election to the House of Representatives, and the meeting is a key part of the select committee's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the election result.

Small number of Trump-era White House documents set to be ...

(CNN) The National Archives plans to release four pages of Trump-era White House documents to the House on Wednesday, in what appears to be the first time the committee that's investigating the January 6 riot would get records that former President Donald Trump wants to keep secret.

The documents are set to go to the House committee at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, according to a court filing from the Archives, which holds all of the Trump White House records.

It's not clear what those four pages include, and should they be turned over, it would be up to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol to make them public.

Trump has previously asked the Supreme Court to block the release of hundreds of pages of records related to January 6, arguing the documents are protected by executive privilege. The Biden White House, however, supports releasing the records to the House select committee, after determining the disclosure is in the nation's best interest and declining to assert executive privilege.

The Supreme Court has not yet acted, and in the absence of word from the high court the sides are sparring over whether the Biden administration is handling the documents' release in good faith.

Trump's legal team has ratcheted up its attacks of the Biden administration's position on releasing the four pages. As the deadline neared on Wednesday, Trump's team made public multiple letters to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals complaining of the plan.

One letter called the Archives' decision "contemptuous behavior," and the Archives' choice to notify the court that four pages would be turned over an attempt to "prophylactically inoculate itself and its officers from contempt proceedings."

In another court filing on Wednesday morning, the National Archives, represented by the Biden Justice Department, said it wasn't intentionally misleading the court about its plan to turn over documents to the House, as Trump's team had accused them of doing.

The Trump team, the Archives said, hadn't done what's needed in time to block the release of four pages being handed over.

"The release of certain records from tranche four -- that Appellant has known for over a month would occur today -- will not violate any order of any court. Indeed, that is presumably why Appellant has asked the Supreme Court to enjoin release of documents from that tranche. The Supreme Court, however, has not acted on that request," lawyers for the administration wrote.

Even though Trump has not won in lower courts, the appellate court in DC has blocked the release of three tranches of documents pending action from the Supreme Court. The handful of pages the Archives is set to turn over Wednesday are part of a fourth tranche of records.

An attorney for Trump, Jesse Binnall, responded defiantly in court early Wednesday to the Archives' plan to release four pages to the House.

He said Trump's team would seek to hold the Biden administration in contempt of court if documents are turned over Wednesday.

The lawyer also wrote that Trump's team believed the Biden administration was acting in bad faith.

He accused the administration of planning to hand over to the House duplicates of records that are were processed earlier and clearly part of Trump's ongoing lawsuit before the Supreme Court, before Trump's team stepped in. The Biden administration said in its filing yesterday those records would not be handed over, instead reducing the amount headed to the House from six to four pages.

"Under no circumstances should the government's misconduct and attempt to create an ad hoc record be sanctioned by this Court," Binnall wrote, according to the strongly worded filing. "The weighty issues being considered by the Supreme Court should be decided under the normal course, not by the government's attempt to bypass a lawful injunction."

The select committee is seeking more than 700 pages of disputed documents as it explores Trump's role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That includes his appearance at a January 6 rally in which he directed followers to go to the US Capitol where lawmakers were set to certify the election results and "fight" for their county.

The documents include activity logs, schedules, speech notes and three pages of handwritten notes from then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows -- paperwork that could reveal goings-on inside the West Wing as Trump supporters gathered in Washington and then overran the Capitol, disrupting the certification of the 2020 vote.

Trump is also seeking to keep secret a draft proclamation honoring two police officers who died in the siege and memos and other documents about supposed election fraud and efforts to overturn Trump's loss of the presidency, the National Archives has said in court documents.

Broadly, the Trump White House records could answer some of the most closely guarded facts of what happened between Trump and other high-level officials, including those under siege on Capitol Hill on January 6.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Jan. 6 committee says probe shows Trump led and directed effort to ...

Rep. Liz Cheney said Trump oversaw a "7-part plan" to overturn election.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said he resigned rather than challenge election results.

Ivanka Trump said she accepted the Justice Department's finding of no election fraud.

A documentarian showed footage of extremists meeting the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

WASHINGTON – The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack heard riveting testimony Thursday from a police officer wounded in the attack and broadcast to a prime-time audience video of a meeting between men charged with seditious conspiracy.

The committee also outlined subjects it will cover in a series of June hearings, including former President Donald Trump's pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election and his attempt to replace his attorney general.

The highlights:

• Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards described how she suffered a concussion while grappling with rioters over bike racks. “I was slipping in people’s blood,” she said. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage.” She also recalled seeing Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day, turn ghostly white after being sprayed with chemicals.

• Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., vice chair of the committee, charged that Trump “oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election."

• Video from British documentarian Nick Quested showed a meeting between leaders of two far-right groups, Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, in a parking garage the night before the attack. Tarrio and Rhodes are each charged with seditious conspiracy and each has pleaded not guilty.

• Former Attorney General William Barr told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack he resigned in December 2020 from the Trump administration rather than challenge the election results.

• Ivanka Trump, the former president's daughter and senior adviser, said she accepted the Justice Department’s finding of no fraud sufficient to overturn the 2020 – in contrast to her father.

"Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy," said the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. said, which he called "the culmination of an attempted coup."

Trump rebuked Jan. 6 panel as biased after first hearing

Former President Donald Trump derided the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as biased in a statement posted to Truth Social shortly after the panel's first hearing concluded.

"So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and irregularities that took place on a massive scale, and decided to use a documentary maker from Fake News ABC to spin only negative footage," he wrote. "Our Country is in such trouble!"

The former president's claims of election fraud are unfounded.

- Ella Lee

Fact check:Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims

When is the next Jan. 6 committee hearing?

The next hearing of the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will be Monday at 10 a.m.

Two more have been announced as well: Wednesday, also at 10 a.m and next Thursday (June 16) at 1 p.m.

Several more hearings are expected to be announced in the coming days.Thursday's hearing was the first in a series of public hearings over the next few weeks.

Who's watching?:Jan. 6 committee's long-awaited hearings promise revelations. Will a divided US want to hear them?

- Chelsey Cox

At DC watch party, hearing gets positive reviews

After the hearing concluded at a DC watch party hosted by progressive group Public Citizen, viewers left largely satisfied.

Debbie Allen, 65, a DC native, says she "was glad to see some new footage."

"I thought they were presenting a cohesive story that gave us a glimpse of what was happening before, during, and after the insurrection."

Allen says she has never seen anything like the hearing before. "I'm 65. The America I grew up in, I thought we were more united about good and bad, right and wrong."

- Kenneth Tran

New evidence: Donald Trump didn't mind the idea of hanging Mike Pence

One new revelation that surfaced in this hearing: Direct quotes from Donald Trump expressing approval of threats by supporters to hang Vice President Mike Pence.

In previewing future testimony, committee member Liz Cheney said: "You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, 'really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more' and aware of the rioters' chants to 'hang Mike Pence'."

She added: "The President responded with this sentiment: 'Maybe our supporters have the right idea.' Mike Pence, quote, 'deserves it'."

The New York Times reported last month that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told colleagues that Trump "had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged."

Trump was angry at Pence for his refusal to throw out the electoral votes that elected President Joe Biden; Pence said he lacked the legal authority to do such a thing.

- David Jackson

The witnesses:Who were the witnesses at the Jan. 6 committee hearing? Here's who testified about the Capitol riot

‘I was slipping in people’s blood,’ Capitol Police officer says

A Capitol Police officer who was injured during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021 described what she saw as a “war scene” that caused her breath to catch into her throat as she saw what was going on.

“It was something like I had seen out of the movies,” said Caroline Edwards. "I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up.”

“I saw friends with blood all over their faces,” Edwards said. “I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos.”

- Erin Mansfield

Gallery:Chilling images from the Capitol riot: Jan. 6 insurrection in photos

For one attendee, Jan. 6 committee is compelling, but little hopes of change

At a DC watch party, Zak Sabim from Virginia listened to the hearing "because I think right is right and wrong is wrong." He said he found the committee's evidence compelling.

"You have to document it. If it's not appreciated now. Hopefully people in the future will appreciate it," he said.

But Sabim also said he sees America as too polarized now for the committee to achieve any outcomes. The Capitol attack has become like a "soap opera" for Sabim.

"I feel like there's been a couple seasons I missed out on," he said "It seems like something if you're a Democratic voter, you probably know all the cast of characters."

- Kenneth Tran

The hearings:Who will be Jan. 6 hearing's most avid viewer? Donald Trump, with a team ready to hit back.

Proud Boys membership tripled; then they organized for Jan. 6

Membership in the "western chauvinist" group the Proud Boys nearly tripled after then-President Donald Trump told them in a debate to "stand back and stand by," according to testimony.

Then, when Trump urged Twitter followers to show up for a rally on Jan. 6, “Be there, will be wild!” Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio created a social media group to organize its members to show up on Jan. 6.

The group was called a “Ministry of Self Defense,” according to Department of Justice Documents shared in the hearing.

- Erin Mansfield

Who are the Proud Boys? They joined the Wisconsin Proud Boys looking for brotherhood. They found racism, bullying and antisemitism.

Capitol Police officer describes spraying of colleague who died

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick turned ghostly white after being sprayed with chemicals while grappling with rioters Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards told the House panel investigating the attack.

Sicknick died the next day from strokes ruled by natural causes. But Edwards, who suffered a concussion, said she returned to the police line where she served outside the House clashing with the mob over bicycle racks for more than a half-hour with Sicknick.

“All of a sudden, I see movement to the left of me and I turned and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in this hands,” Edwards testified Thursday. “And he was ghostly pale, which I figured at that point that he had been sprayed and I was concerned.”

“My cop alarm bells went off because if you get sprayed with pepper spray, you're going to turn red,” she added, holding up a sheet of paper. “He turned just about as pale as this sheet of paper.”

- Bart Jansen

Edwards describes blacking out after rioters ripped down first barricade

Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards described her injuries during the Jan. 6 attacks after rioters ripped down the first barricade moments after she told her sergeant that “we're going to need a few more people down here.”

Edwards said that after the first barricade came down, she and other officers started grappling over the bike racks “to make sure that we can get more people down and get our CPU units time to answer the call.” But she said that she felt a back rack come on top of her head, and her foot caught the stair behind where she was standing.

“My chin hit the handrail and then — I at that point I blacked out — but my back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me,” Edwards said.

- Rebecca Morin

Leaders of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers met in a parking garage

Leaders of the ‘western chauvanist’ Proud Boys and the extremist militia group Oath Keepers met in a parking garage the night before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker, testified that he and his crew went to pick up Enrique Tarrio from jail before meeting with Stewart Rhodes.

The crew “drove down into the parking garage and filmed the scene of Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Rhodes and certain other individuals in that garage,” Quested said.

— Erin Mansfield

Committee airs film about Trump's inspiration to Proud Boys, other extremist groups

The committee produced video clips from a documentary about the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other white nationalist groups who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol – and Trump's incitement of them.

The film replayed Trump's infamous 2020 presidential debate comment about the Proud Boys – "stand back and stand by" – and his tweet encouraging people to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Many violent offenders said they believed they were acting at Trump's behest.

"We have obtained substantial evidence showing that the president's December 19th tweet, calling his followers to D.C. on January 6th, energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups," said committee chairman Bennie Thompson.

Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested testified about his filming of the Proud Boys,

- David Jackson

Proud Boys:Who are the Proud Boys? Far-right group has concerned experts for years

House panel outlines hearing subjects

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., outlined the subjects of other June hearings the House panel investigating the Capitol attack Jan. 6, 2021:

--The hearing Monday at 10 a.m. will explore how former President Donald Trump and his advisers knew he lost the 2020 election, but still spread false and fraudulent information, Cheney said.

--The hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. will reveal Trump corruptly planning to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Cheney said.

--The hearing Thursday at 1 p.m. will describe Trump’s pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to reject state electors.

The fifth June hearing will focus on Trump pressuring officials in states he lost to change their results, particularly in Georgia where he urged them to “find” 11,780 votes he needed to win.

The final two hearings in June will cover Trump summoning a mob and directing them to march on the Capitol, and then failing to stop the violence, Cheney said.

- Bart Jansen

Edwards says she wondered ‘how we had gotten here’ during Capitol attacks

Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol Police officer injured during the Capitol attack, said that she had never had her “patriotism or duty been called into question” but that she would “gladly sacrifice everything to make sure that the America my grandfather defended is here for many years to come.”

In her opening statement, Edwards said that she had been called “Nancy Pelosi’s dog” and “a traitor to my country, my oath and my constitution” during the attacks at the Capitol.

“In actuality, I wasn't none of those things,” she said. “I was an American standing face to face with other Americans asking myself…how we had gotten here.”

- Rebecca Morin

Pence chief of staff: Veep chose Constitution over Trump

Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said he felt proud of much of what was accomplished during the Trump administration, but that his boss split with the president over fighting the election results.

Pence refused to single-handedly reject electors, as Trump and his lawyer, John Eastman, repeatedly pressured him to do.

“I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath,” Short told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack in a videotaped deposition. “That's what he articulated publicly. And I think that that's what he felt.”

- Bart Jansen

Investigation remains ongoing, even as hearings begin

More information continues to pour into the committee investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is continuing, even as public hearings are ongoing.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told the public to expect additional information to be included in the final report disclosed to the public because the committee’s investigation remains ongoing.

Cheney also said that the Department of Justice has been working with cooperating witnesses and so far has only disclosed some of the information it has identified.

- Erin Mansfield

Adviser Jason Miller: Donald Trump didn't believe evidence he had lost

A Donald Trump political adviser whose videotaped testimony popped up at the Jan. 6 hearing said the committee did not broadcast his remarks in full.

In the hearing video, Miller testified that an aide told Trump he simply did not have the votes to win the 2020 election.

On Twitter, Miller said the video was cut off before his next remarks, which were about how Trump did not believe the analysis.

He provided a transcript:

"Q: Okay. And what was the President's reaction then when Matt said to him, 'hey, we've looked at the numbers, you're going to lose'? A: I think it's safe to say he disagreed with Matt's analysis."

– David Jackson

Head Oath Keeper:Vegas parking valet, Yale law graduate, unhinged Oath Keepers leader: Who is Stewart Rhodes?

For some DC watch party attendees, the hearing is personal

Two attendees, Whitney Williams and Raleigh Lancaster, both DC natives, say the hearing is more personal to them since they were close by when protestors breached the Capitol.

"This isn't really a place where this happens," says Lancaster. "I've just never seen anything like this before."

Williams is retired, and is barely involved in politics. But because the attack was at her doorstep, "it's so important," for her. She says she never listens to congressional hearings but tonight's hearing is different.

"It'd be a sad day for America," says Lancaster, if nothing comes out of the hearing.

- Kenneth Tran

Cheney to Republicans: ‘Your dishonor will remain’

In the final remarks of her opening statement, Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney condemned the members of her party who have chosen to look the other way on the events of Jan. 6 and the efforts that led to it.

“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible,” she said. “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

- Ella Lee

Committee shows video detailing timeline of Capitol attack

After opening remarks, the hearing turned to a video of the Jan. 6 attack, detailing minute-by-minute how the attack unfolded led by Trump’s speech outside the White House beforehand.

“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Trump is shown saying. ” I hope. Because if Mike does the right thing, we win the election.”

The video detailed involvement of the far-right organization Proud Boys. It also showed communication from Capitol Police officers as rioters began to breach the building, breaking windows and storming the steps as members of Congress met to certify the 2020 electoral count.

- Joey Garrison

Widows of officers who died as result of Jan. 6 emotional watching video

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn stretched his arm out around widows Serena Liebengood and Sandra Garza as the video played of the violence unfolding on Jan. 6.

Liebengood and Garza pulled out tissues and wiped away tears watching the video — their husbands Howie Liebengood and Brian Sicknick died in the aftermath of Jan 6., one by suicide and one after suffering two strokes.

– Dylan Wells

Sean Hannity, Kayleigh McEnany wanted Trump to end 'crazy' stuff

The committee has released notable text messages from major supporters who urged then-President Donald Trump to stop claiming the 2020 election had been stolen – advice Trump has ignored to this day.

A day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, talk show host Sean Hannity texted White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about what Trump needed: "No more crazy people" and "no more stolen election talk ... Many people will quit."

McEnany texted back: “Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook.”

Trump did not heed that advice.

- David Jackson

Milley recalls Meadows saying ‘need to kill’ narrative that Trump wasn’t in charge

Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they “need to kill the narrative” that Trump was not in charge.

Milley said during a video deposition that Vice President Mike Pence "issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders” to “get the military down here."

“We need to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions,” Milley recalled Meadows telling him in a deposition excerpt. “We need to establish the narrative that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable.”

- Rebecca Morin

Trump met with Flynn, Powell, Giuliani before tweeting “Be there, will be wild!”

Former President Donald Trump met with former aide Gen. Michael Flynn, attorney Sidney Powell, and advisor Rudy Giuliani, among others, to discuss “having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections,” according to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

The meeting that ran late into the evening took place on Dec. 18, according to Cheney. The president met with the group alone before “White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene.”

The next day, Trump tweeted that there would be a big protest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6th. “Be there, will be wild!” he told his followers.

- Erin Mansfield

More:What we don't know about Jan. 6: What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

Ivanka Trump accepted DOJ’s finding of no election fraud

Ivanka Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, said she accepted the Justice Department’s finding of no fraud sufficient to overturn the 2020 – in contrast to her father.

Ivanka Trump said she trusted the finding because she respected then-Attorney General William Barr, who said he resigned in part rather than fight to overturn the election. Her conclusion contrasted to her father’s continued efforts to overturn election results.

“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka Trump said. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”

- Bart Jansen

Ivanka's take:House Jan. 6 panel shows Ivanka Trump opposing claims of 2020 election fraud, in contrast to former President Donald Trump

Cheney: Trump had 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election

Rep. Liz Cheney said former President Donald Trump “oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election.”

Cheney said Trump wanted to prevent the transfer of presidential power. She added that evidence of each element of the plan will be laid out during the hearing.

“All Americans should keep and bear in mind that on the morning of Jan. 6, President Donald Trump's intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election,” she said.

- Rebecca Morin

Bennie Thompson: Donald Trump was "the center of this conspiracy"

In case there was any doubt, committee chairman Bennie Thompson made clear the night's main theme: President Donald Trump engineered a plot to steal the 2020 election from President-elect Joe Biden.

"Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy," Thompson said, describing Jan. 6 as "the culmination of an attempted coup."

Thompson pledged to show evidence to back up his claim.

- David Jackson

What to know:Here's what you need to know about the Jan. 6 committee and its June hearings

Cheney: testimony will show Trump ignored aides' pleas to call off attack

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said testimony from a more than a half-dozen Trump aides that Thursday’s hearing will highlight will show that Trump ignored pleas from his staff to call off the riot because he supported it.

"In the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, “were doing what they should be doing,’ Cheney said. “This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob."

Cheney said that evidence will also show Trump was angry at advisor who told him that he needed to be do something more even though he was aware of threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence

"The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot,” Cheney said, pointing to intelligence about the attack beforehand.

- Joey Garrison

Barr opposed Trump’s claims 2020 election was ‘stolen’

Former Attorney General William Barr told the House panel investigating the Capitol attack he resigned in December 2020 from the Trump administration rather than challenge the election results.

Barr, who has said publicly the Justice Department found no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, said he met with then-President Donald Trump on Nov. 23, Dec. 1 and Dec. 14 to make it clear he didn’t agree with putting out the election was stolen.

“I told the president it was bull----,” Barr said in a videotaped deposition played at the hearing. “I didn’t want to be a part of it and that’s one of the reasons that went into me leaving when I did.”

- Bart Jansen

Police officers and widows of officers who died are in attendance

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone are in the hearing room, seated behind where witnesses will testify.

Erin Smith, Serena Liebengood, and Sandra Garza – all widows of officers who died in the aftermath of Jan. 6 – are seated with them.

Dunn is wearing a shirt that shows definitions of "insurrection," including "January 6, 2021"

– Dylan Wells

Thompson: American democracy ‘remains in danger’

The chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, will open Thursday’s hearing saying efforts to undermine the Constitution and thwart the will of the American people aren’t over, according to excerpts of his remarks.

Thompson, D-Miss., will say "our democracy remains in danger" and must be protected through the investigation of the Capitol attack. He said a series of hearings this month won’t just look backward at what happened Jan. 6, 2021, but also forward to protect the rule of law.

“We can’t sweep what happened under the rug,” Thompson will say. “We must confront the truth with candor, resolve and determination.”

--Bart Jansen

Who's on the panel:Meet the members of the January 6 House select committee ahead of first public hearing Thursday

Open minds but no high expectations at a DC watch party

At a watch party in the Taft Memorial Carillon hosted by the non-profit progressive consumer group Public Citizen, a couple hundred of attendees are anxiously and excitedly waiting for the long awaited Jan. 6 hearing.

Glenn Daigon, from North Bethesda MD, says he doesn't want to be too excited or disappointed with how the hearing turns out: "I don't see this as a slam dunk either way."

But he would like to see at least some "indictments and convictions." He says if there's no accountability for the Capitol attack, "there's no point" in the hearings.

- Kenneth Tran

What is Donald Trump doing during the hearing?

Don't expect former President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence to testify –but Trump is expected to watch, according to people who have spoken with him in recent days.

Trump, a prolific and mercurial watcher of television news during his four years in the White House wants to know what the special House committee, packed with political opponents, will bring out to show to the American people, particularly since he has no allies on the committee to tip him off ahead of time, said two people who have talked with him recently and spoke on condition of anonymity about private conversations.

The original panel would have included GOP allies of Trump but House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy removed all five of his choices after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of them.

- Chelsey Cox

Trump tuned in:Who will be Jan. 6 hearing's most avid viewer? Donald Trump, with a team ready to hit back.

Jim Jordan spurns Jan. 6 committee as Saturday subpoena deadline looms

In an 11-page letter sent to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, questioned the panel’s legitimacy and again asked its members to share the information amassed on him before he agrees to testify.

“While some courts have recognized the Select Committee’s investigation as having a legitimate legislative purpose, it does not necessarily follow that the Select Committee’s subpoena to me is in furtherance of a legitimate legislative purpose,” Jordan writes in the letter, sent the day of the committee’s first public hearing.

Jordan is one of five GOP members subpoenaed by the select committee, alongside Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Andy Biggs of Arizona; Mo Brooks of Alabama; and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. Jordan has until Saturday to comply with the subpoena.

- Ella Lee

Get the latest politics news in your inbox:Sign up for our On Politics newsletter

House GOP Leader McCarthy declines to address 2020 election legitimacy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Thursday declined to say clearly whether President Joe Biden rightfully won the 2020 election.

“We’ve asked this question a long time,” McCarthy said to reporters during a press conference. “Joe Biden is the president. I think you can look that there’s a lot of problems still with the election process.”

McCarthy, who said Thursday he has answered the questions many times before, has shifted his views since the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection attempt. He suggested days after the attack that Trump resign, but has refused to cooperate with a subpoena from the committee investigating that day.

- Erin Mansfield

Biden calls Jan. 6 attack a ‘flagrant violation of the Constitution’ ahead of primetime hearing

President Joe Biden called the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution” Thursday, hours before a House committee investigating the insurrection holds its first public hearing.

“A lot of Americans are going to see for the first time some of the details that occurred,” Biden said, giving unprompted remarks on the hearing at the beginning of a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Los Angeles at the Summit of Americas.

“I think these guys broke the law and tried to turn around the results an of election. There's a lot of questions - who's responsible, who's involved? I'm not going to make a judgment on that.”

- Joey Garrison

More:Menendez: Mexico's president tried to ‘blackmail’ Biden to invite ‘dictators’ to Americas summit

Bill Barr met with committee about Trump’s election fraud claims

A week before the first public hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, former attorney general Bill Barr met with the panel about Trump’s claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s claims are seen by some as a catalyst for the attack on the Capitol.

Barr’s meeting focused on material in his book, "One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General." Though he left the Trump administration weeks before the insurrection, Barr was still the nation’s top law enforcement officer during and after the presidential election.

After a Justice Department investigation into the fraud claims, Barr told the Associated Press in December 2020 that the agency hadn’t “seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

- Chelsey Cox

First 2 witnesses are injured Capitol Police officer, documentarian

Two witnesses spoke at the first hearing. One was Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury when the mob pushed her to the ground after breaking through a fence of bicycle racks outside the Capitol.

She was the first of 140 officers injured that day, according to the committee. Other officers have recalled hearing her pleas for help.

The other witness was an acclaimed British documentarian, Nick Quested, who filmed around the Capitol during the attack. The day before the riot, Quested also filmed the leaders of two far-right groups – Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who are each charged with seditious conspiracy – meeting in a parking garage near the Capitol, according to the New York Times.

More:Who invaded the US Capitol on Jan. 6? Criminal cases shed light on offenses

What Republicans are saying: Some blast committee as illegitimate, partisan

House Republicans have blasted the committee as illegitimate, partisan and a sham because of how it was set up.

The heart of the complaint is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to seat GOP Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio on the panel. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., then pulled his nominees rather than have her vet them. Pelosi then appointed nine members – including GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – rather than the 13 authorized.

Federal courts have upheld the panel’s authority repeatedly. But Republicans argue the one-sided appointments mean there will be no meaningful cross-examination of witnesses or alternate views presented during hearings.

What we don't know about Jan. 6:What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

Biden plans to watch hearings

President Joe Biden is expected to watch some of Thursday’s hearing despite hosting the Summit of the Americas in California, according to White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

Biden waived executive privilege to give the committee access to Trump administration documents as part of the investigation.

“These are important hearings,” Klain told MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Wednesday. “He believes in executive privilege generally, but there is no executive privilege to overthrow the government of the United States. There is no executive privilege to protect plans on an insurrection.”

What kind of evidence does the committee have?

The panel collected more than 100,000 documents and more than 1,000 witnesses cooperated in the inquiry. Pictures and thousands of hours of video from security cameras and body-worn cameras on police officers illustrate how the violent mob smashed its way into the Capitol.

“People have gotten information in snippets over the course of a year plus, but the fact is that we’re going to tell the story in a coherent thread through the hearings,” said a committee member, Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va. “It was a tragic event for our country that there were villains that day, of course. But there were people who were heroic, who through their actions really prevented a much worse outcome.”

More:After Jan. 6, lawmakers want to clarify that vice presidents have ceremonial role in counting votes

More:What we don't know about Jan. 6: What Trump's family told the committee, whether attack was organized

More:Prosecutors charge former Proud Boys leader, 4 others with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 attack

More:Who has been subpoenaed so far by the Jan. 6 committee?

Mark Meadows' 2,319 text messages reveal Trump's inner circle ...

Washington (CNN) CNN has obtained 2,319 text messages that former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and President Joe Biden's January 20, 2021 inauguration.

The vast trove of texts offers the most revealing picture to date of how Trump's inner circle, supporters and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes to try to overturn the election results and then reacted to the violence that effort unleashed at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The logs, which Meadows selectively provided to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, show how the former chief of staff was at the nexus of sprawling conspiracy theories baselessly claiming the election had been stolen. They also demonstrate how he played a key role in the attempts to stop Biden's certification on January 6.

The never-before-seen texts include messages from Trump's family -- daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr. -- as well as White House and campaign officials, Cabinet members, Republican Party leaders, January 6 rally organizers, Rudy Giuliani, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, Sean Hannity and other Fox hosts. There are also text exchanges with more than 40 current and former Republican members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The texts include everything from plans to fight the election results to surprising and unexpected reactions on January 6 from some of Trump's staunchest allies. At 2:28 p.m., Greene, the conservative firebrand who had helped to plan the congressional objections that day, texted Meadows with an urgent plea for help as the violence was unfolding at the Capitol.

"Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol Please tell the President to calm people This isn't the way to solve anything," Greene wrote. Meadows does not appear to reply.

More messages flooded in.

"Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?" Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former acting White House chief of staff, texted Meadows.

"It's really bad up here on the hill. They have breached the Capitol," Georgia Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk wrote.

"The president needs to stop this ASAP," texted GOP Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina.

"POTUS is engaging," Meadows sent in response to Loudermilk. "We are doing it," he texted to Timmons.

"Thanks. This doesn't help our cause," Loudermilk replied.

Shortly after, Donald Trump Jr. weighed in: "This his(sic) one you go to the mattresses on. They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse."

"TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!" texted Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus.

Heated rhetoric and conspiracy theories

The text messages CNN obtained begin on Election Day, November 3, 2020. Even before the election was called, Meadows was inundated with conspiracy theories about election fraud , strategies to challenge the results and pleas for Trump to keep fighting. The messages -- from GOP activists, donors, Republican members of Congress and state party officials -- appear to act as an echo chamber affirming Trump's false claims that the election was stolen. For months leading up to Election Day, Trump had claimed the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged.

Previously disclosed text messages showed that former Trump administration Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr. , each texted Meadows on November 4 and 5 with ideas for overturning the election.

On November 7, hours before the election was called, Perry texted Meadows again: "We have the data driven program that can clearly show where the fraud was committed. This is the silver bullet."

While Perry has previously denied CNN reporting about his text messages to Meadows, CNN has confirmed it's his cell phone and he signed this text, "Rick Perry," including his number.

Other texts, however, include hints of doubt expressed by members of Trump's team and even Meadows himself about the veracity of conspiracy theories being spread by Trump's "kraken" team -- outside attorneys working for Trump that included Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

Some key congressional allies who worked with Trump's campaign initially in its efforts to overturn the election, such as Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, ultimately soured on the approach as the January 6 congressional certification neared, CNN previously reported.

The texts also show how Trump allies were quick to deflect responsibility for the January 6 attack. Shortly after pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol, one of his top aides began crafting a counter-narrative.

At 3:45 p.m., Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller suggested to Meadows and Trump aide Dan Scavino that Trump should tweet: "Call me crazy, but ideas for two tweets from POTUS: 1) Bad apples, likely ANTIFA or other crazed leftists, infiltrated today s peaceful protest over the fraudulent vote count. Violence is never acceptable! MAGA supporters embrace our police and the rule of law and should leave the Capitol now! 2) The fake news media who encouraged this summer s violent and radical riots are now trying to blame peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters for violent actions. This isn't who we are! Our people should head home and let the criminals suffer the consequences!"

Trump's allies in Congress appeared to get the message. At 3:52 p.m., Greene told Meadows: "Mark we don't think these attackers are our people. We think they are Antifa. Dressed like Trump supporters."

Five minutes later, Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, texted Meadows: "Cap Police told me last night they'd been warned that today there'd be a lot of Antifa dressed in red Trump shirts & hats & would likely get violent."

In the 16 months since January 6, hundreds of indictments have shown nearly all of those who breached the Capitol were in fact pro-Trump supporters.

While Greene was alarmed on January 6, by the next day she was apologizing that the efforts to block Biden's certification had failed.

"Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I'm sorry nothing worked. I don't think that President Trump caused the attack on the Capitol. It's not his fault," she wrote the morning of January 7. "Absolutely no excuse and I fully denounce all of it, but after shut downs all year and a stolen election, people are saying that they have no other choice."

Meadows replied, "Thanks Marjorie."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wears a "Trump Won" face mask as she arrives on the floor of the House to take her oath of office as a newly elected member of the 117th House of Representatives in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2021.

Greene is currently facing a legal challenge to disqualify her from running for Congress because of her alleged role in January 6. In court testimony Friday, the Georgia Republican repeatedly deflected or said she didn't remember what she had said around the events of January 6. The Meadows text logs offer a new glimpse into what she was telling the White House chief of staff in real time.

On December 31, Greene reached out to Meadows for advice about how to prepare for objections to certifying the election on January 6.

"Good morning Mark, I'm here in DC. We have to get organized for the 6th," Greene wrote. "I would like to meet with Rudy Giuliani again. We didn't get to speak with him long. Also anyone who can help. We are getting a lot of members on board. And we need to lay out the best case for each state."

Meadows does not appear to respond.

By January 17, Greene was suggesting ways to keep Trump in office, telling Meadows there were several Republicans in Congress who still wanted the then-President to declare martial law, which had been raised in a heated Oval Office meeting a month earlier.

Greene texted: "In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall (sic) law. I don't know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!"

Again, Meadows does not appear to respond.

What Meadows turned over

Meadows provided the cache of 2,319 messages to the January 6 committee in December 2021. But soon after, he stopped cooperating and refused to appear for a deposition. Ultimately, the House voted to hold the former White House chief of staff in contempt of Congress. The Justice Department has not yet announced whether it will charge Meadows.

Meadows has sued the House committee in an attempt to block the congressional subpoenas. And in a late-night court filing on Friday, the committee responded with new details revealing Meadows was warned ahead of time that January 6 could turn violent, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchison, one of Meadows' former White House aides.

In addition, the committee released text messages Meadows exchanged with Republican members of Congress, including texts with Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania about a scheme to replace Justice Department leaders who opposed Trump's claims of election fraud.

In late December, Perry reached out to Meadows, connecting him to then-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who was pushing unfounded claims of voter fraud inside the Justice Department. Trump was considering firing the acting attorney general and installing Clark instead. Clark invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he spoke to the January 6 committee in February.

On December 26, Perry texted Meadows, "Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!"

"Mark, you should call Jeff," he continued. "I just got off the phone with him and he explained to me why the principal deputy won't work especially with the FBI. They will view it as as (sic) not having the authority to enforce what needs to be done."

"I got it," Meadows responded. "I think I understand. Let me work on the deputy position."

On December 28, Perry reached out again: "Did you call Jeff Clark?" Meadows does not appear to respond.

Meadows withheld more than 1,000 messages from the committee on claims of privilege, the panel said in Friday's court filing. In his lawsuit, Meadows' attorney argued the former White House chief of staff "has been put in the untenable position of choosing between conflicting privilege claims."

Hannity to Meadows: 'Yes sir'

JUST WATCHED 'That's not OK': Bash reacts to Hannity's texts to Mark Meadows Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'That's not OK': Bash reacts to Hannity's texts to Mark Meadows 01:43

In addition to the texts the committee has released, CNN and other news organizations have previously published selections of text messages Meadows received from Lee, Roy, Trump Jr., Perry and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas

The logs obtained by CNN include numerous messages from official White House cell phone numbers. Some have been identified by CNN, others are unknown.

There are also numerous group texts with Trump's inner circle. The various group chats include Meadows, Ivanka Trump, Trump Jr. and Kushner, as well as top advisers such as Hope Hicks, campaign manager Bill Stepien, Miller and Scavino, among others.

Some texts only include links to news reports and social media. Others appear to contain content that was cut-and-pasted and forwarded. The logs do not contain images or attachments.

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump watch a video featuring Fox host Sean Hannity ahead of Trump's arrival to a campaign rally in Michigan on October 30, 2020.

Meadows' messages also include dozens of exchanges with Fox hosts, as well as journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Politico, Bloomberg, NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN.

Among Meadows' most frequent interactions were those with Fox's Sean Hannity, a well-known friend of Trump. Throughout the logs, Hannity both gives advice and asks for direction.

On the afternoon of Election Day, Hannity texted Meadows to ask about turnout in North Carolina.

Meadows responded: "Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote."

"Yes sir," Hannity replied. "On it. Any place in particular we need a push."

"Pennsylvania. NC AZ," Meadows wrote. "Nevada."

"Got it. Everywhere," Hannity said.

For the most part, Meadows' texts are short, and frequently he does not appear to reply at all. Some conversations include non sequiturs. It's unclear whether Meadows did not respond to the messages or if the logs are incomplete, because texts could also have been deleted or withheld for claims of privilege.

CNN reached out for comment to all individuals who sent text messages quoted in this story. Meadows and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the January 6 committee declined to comment.

The fight to 'stop the steal'

The text messages provide a timeline showing how Trump's team searched all corners for evidence of election fraud and tried to overturn the election. Beginning on Election Day, Meadows was in the middle of it all, from connecting activists pushing conspiracy theories to strategizing with GOP lawmakers and rally organizers preparing for January 6.

The texts also show Meadows was dealing with everything from mediating a fight over who would be on the speaker's list for the January 6 rally to fielding requests to pay Giuliani's bills.

"Sir, we are airborne on the way to Michigan from Arizona. We're going to need a hotel for the team and two vehicles to pick us up," Bernie Kerik, a Giuliani associate, texted Meadows on December 1.

Reached for comment by CNN, Kerik confirmed the text was his and said that he never received a credit card for those travel expenses, paid for it himself and was later reimbursed.

Other texts show Meadows coordinating with GOP activists in the immediate aftermath of the election.

"Pls get 4 or 5 killers in remaining counts. Need outsiders who will torch the place. Local folks won't do it. Lawyers and operators. Get us in these states," American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp texted Meadows on November 4.

"I may need to get you and mercy (sic) to go to PA," Meadows responded, referring to Schlapp's wife, Mercedes, who is a former Trump White House aide.

On a few occasions, Trump family members weighed in. Ivanka Trump sent a note on November 5 to a group that included Kushner, Hicks, Stepien, Miller and Meadows: "You are all WARRIORS of epic proportions! Keep the faith and the fight."

Dozens of Republicans also offered support and advice to Meadows -- as well as perpetuated conspiracy theories that were gaining traction in right-wing media.

For instance, Rep. Ted Budd, a North Carolina Republican now running for Senate, suggested in a text on November 7 that Dominion Voting Systems could be connected to George Soros' company. Dominion has no corporate ties to Soros, a billionaire and frequent target of baseless conspiracy theories, according to a CNN fact check

On November 6, Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, appeared to suggest that state legislatures should appoint electors "in the various states where there's been shenanigans," a move he acknowledged would be "highly controversial." In his text, he wrote the legislatures could appoint "a look doors," which is phonetically similar to electors.

On December 1, then-Attorney General William Barr infuriated Trump when he publicly stated that the Justice Department did not find widespread evidence of voter fraud. Nevertheless, Meadows received multiple texts pushing back, including from Schlapp later that day: "Happy to walk ag through our evidence. Its (sic) overwhelming."

The texts also show Meadows reached out to GOP officials in multiple states to lobby for Trump's cause. On two occasions, Meadows attempted to contact Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was under attack from Trump for certifying Georgia's election for Biden.

"mr Secretary. Can you call the White House switchboard," Meadows wrote on December 5. "Your voicemail is full."

Raffensperger does not appear to reply to the messages.

Trump's efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia are under investigation by a district attorney in the Atlanta area.

Meadows also received text messages from GOP activists and local officials making outlandish claims, including allegations that "traitors inside our intel agencies" were committing election fraud, as well as baseless charges that voting equipment companies Dominion and Smartmatic had manipulated votes -- the same false claims being pushed by Giuliani and Powell.

Both companies have filed billion-dollar lawsuits over the false election claims, including against Fox News, right-wing media organizations, Giuliani, Powell and Lindell.

Throughout the two months, Meadows received dozens of messages from Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who offered what she claimed were examples and sources of voter fraud.

On December 9, she sent a text to Meadows letting him know she'd already reached out to Trump's executive assistant: "This guy says he's cracked the whole election fraud and wants to speak to someone. I sent his info to Molly Michael a few days ago, but I'm not sure it went anywhere."

"I will call him," Meadows responded.

MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, speaks to reporters outside federal court in Washington, Thursday, June 24, 2021.

Another frequent texter was Lindell, one of the most vocal proponents of baseless election conspiracy theories. Even after courts had dismissed dozens of Trump's legal challenges, the My Pillow CEO was still pressing the White House.

"Everything Sidney has said is true! We have to get the machines and everything we already have proves the President won by millions of votes!" Lindell texted Meadows on December 20. "This is the biggest cover up of one of the worst crimes in history! I have spent over a million$ to help uncover this fraud and used my platform so people can get the word not to give up!"

Meadows replied, "Thanks brother. Pray for a miracle."

Reached for comment by CNN, Lindell confirmed the text was his. He told CNN that he has not spoken to Meadows since before January 20, 2021, and that at the time he was "just trying to get an appointment with the President."

Doubts about election fraud

While Trump and his allies publicly stuck by their claims that the election had been stolen, behind the scenes, Trump's inner circle -- including Meadows -- expressed some doubts. Trump's aides also questioned whether lawyers like Giuliani and Powell were doing more harm than good.

On November 6, Miller, Trump's campaign spokesman, texted a group, which included Ivanka Trump, Kushner, Hicks, Stepien, Scavino and Meadows, suggesting that the numbers in Philadelphia didn't back up claims about alleged election fraud there.

"One other key data point: In 2016, POTUS received 15.5% of the vote in Philadelphia County. Today he is currently at 18.3%. So he increased from his performance in 2016. In 2016, Philadelphia County made up 11.3% of the total vote in the state. As it currently stands, Philadelphia County only makes up 10.2% of the statewide vote tally. So POTUS performed better in a smaller share. Sen. (Rick) Santorum was just making this point on CNN - cuts hard against the urban vote stealing narrative," Miller wrote.

Jason Miller talks on the phone in a meeting room for lawyers of former President Donald Trump during his Senate Impeachment trial on Capitol Hill, February 12, 2021

A week later, Miller wrote to Meadows again, this time saying that campaign research did not find any evidence of a conspiracy involving Soros, the Democratic donor. Miller also said he was concerned about sharing the findings with Trump.

"Lots there re: functionality problems, not much there on Dem/Soros conspiracy connections," Miller wrote on November 13. "Will defer to you on whether or not to share full report with POTUS. POTUS is clearly hyped up on them, not just from his tweets, but he also called me and Justin separately last night to complain. JM."

On November 20, Meadows was asked by a Florida contact how confident he was about fraud related to Dominion. Meadows texted back: "Dominion, not that confident. Other fraud. Very confident."

Two days later, Ginni Thomas messaged Meadows with apparent concerns, asking, "Trying to understand the Sidney Powell distancing..."

Meadows responded: "She doesn't have anything or at least she won't share it if she does."

"Wow!" Ginni Thomas wrote back.

In one of the few messages Meadows received from Kushner, Trump's son-in-law shared a fact check on December 4 debunking one of the most prominent election fraud claims from Georgia. The article showed that despite inflammatory claims of poll workers stashing suitcases filled with ballots under a table, that did not, in fact, occur.

'Hoping the VP sticks with us'

After the Electoral College affirmed Biden's win on December 14, Trump's allies turned their attention to January 6: the congressional certification of the electors and the rally that Trump said on Twitter "will be wild!"

On December 21, Brooks, the Alabama congressman, wrote to Meadows and others in a group text asking whether he should engage with the media about the "formulation of our January 6 strategies."

"Does the White House want me to reply or be mum?" Brooks wrote. A staunch Trump ally running for Senate this year, Brooks gave an incendiary speech on January 6 but recently fell out of favor with Trump after suggesting Republicans should move on from 2020.

In response to CNN's request for comment, Brooks said he had "no regrets" about his speech on January 6 and that he was "shocked" by the violence. "I had no inkling," Brooks added.

Cruz, a Texas Republican who pushed a plan inside the Senate that would have delayed certification of the election, exchanged just a few messages with Meadows -- links to his statements posted to social media.

On January 2, the senator sent Meadows his tweet proposing a 10-day audit of the election results.

"Here's the statement," Cruz wrote.

"Perfect," Meadows responded.

The texts also make frequent reference to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to go along with Trump's plan to try to block the certification on January 6. On December 30, Rep. Brian Babin of Texas expressed concern that congressional leaders might try to short circuit their objections -- and that Pence was not on board.

"Dems and some Republicans may well try to shortstop our objection efforts. Hoping the VP sticks with us," Babin wrote.

On New Year's Eve, Miller shared a news article with Meadows that Pence opposed a lawsuit intended to help overturn the election. Miller warned that it could be used "to drive a massive wedge between POTUS and everybody else in the party."

"He's absolutely going to blow his stack on this if he isn't already aware," Miller said of Trump. "Oh boy I don't understand what the VP was thinking here."

On January 5, Jordan, the Ohio congressman and close GOP ally of Meadows, weighed in.

"On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all -- in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence," Jordan wrote.

Meadows responded the morning of January 6: "I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen."

The January 6 committee included the text exchange in its Friday court filing as evidence of Meadows' alleged involvement in the effort to overturn the election.

The logs also show Meadows was involved with planning the rally on January 6 , helping to mediate a fight over the speakers list. Trump adviser Katrina Pierson was alarmed at some of the proposed fringe figures who wanted to speak.

Crowds arrive for the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.

On January 2 and 3, Pierson wrote to Meadows looking for help.

"Good afternoon, would you mind giving me a call re: this Jan 6th event. Things have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction. Please," she asked on January 2.

The next day, she reached out again: "Scratch that, Caroline Wren has decided to move forward with the original psycho list. Apparently Dan Scavino approved??"

She continued: "So, I'm done. I can't be a part of embarrassing POTUS any further."

Wren was a fundraiser for the Trump campaign and helped organize the January 6 rally. She has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee

Less than an hour later, Pierson wrote Meadows that she told Wren she was talking to the White House in order to get her to back down.

"I let her know that I was going to reach out to WH and her tone changed," Pierson wrote. "So, I'll continue to build a proper event."

"Thank you," Meadows responded.

'As bad as this can get'

In the aftermath of the violence at the Capitol on January 6, Trump's inner circle discussed in a group text how to deal with the fallout -- and Trump's suspension from Twitter. At 10:10 p.m. on January 6, Kushner texted the group: "Why don't we post on his Facebook page since he isn't locked out there."

In the final days of Trump's term, as he faced impeachment for a second time, Meadows received words of encouragement from staunch allies, as well as caution from advisers.

"I would like to pass to POTUS that we are still with him, I believe in him and I want to encourage him," Rep. Andrew Clyde, a freshman Georgia Republican, wrote on January 9. "I truly hope he does create a new platform to complete (sic) with Twitter and I hope he calls it 'Trumpet' and then we can send out 'notes' to each other!"

"I will share it with him. Thanks Andrew," Meadows responded.

On January 13, the day the House voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol -- with 10 Republicans joining Democrats -- Miller shared polling data in a group text with Meadows, Scavino and Kushner that showed "2/3 of the MAGA base wants us to move on."

"I tried to walk the President through this earlier but he won't have any of it," Miller said.

As Trump prepared to leave power, he appeared to be a pariah in the Republican Party. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy had said during the House's January 13 impeachment debate that the outgoing President "bears responsibility" for the riot. Six days later, on January 19, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell denounced Trump from the floor of the Senate, saying the mob that attacked the Capitol was "provoked by the President and other powerful people."

Nevertheless, Trump's standing in the Republican Party quickly recovered, especially after McCarthy's January 28 visit to Mar-a-Lago and the February 2021 acquittal of Trump in the Senate impeachment trial.

But before Trump left office, the Meadows text logs show some of Trump's staunchest allies were dejected. On January 19, in one of the final texts Meadows received as chief of staff, Fox's Sean Hannity shared a video of McConnell's floor speech.

Hannity texted Meadows: "Well this is as bad as this can get."

Jamie Gangel
Jeremy Herb
Elizabeth Stuart

Trump's January 6 documents are at the House. When can we see ...

(CNN) Thanks to the Supreme Court, the House select committee investigating January 6 has now received all the pages from the National Archives that former President Donald Trump had tried to block.

The defeat of Trump's legal challenge was resounding , though the Supreme Court left the door open to other efforts to challenge certain committee fact-finding efforts on the basis of executive privilege. But its rejection of Trump's arguments is certain to ripple across the considerations other witnesses are making about whether to cooperate with the probe and what chances their potential legal challenges have to success.

And by already speaking to more than 400 witnesses and now getting the hundreds of pages top officials' White House records that were at the heart of the case before the Supreme Court, the committee is likely to be able to fill in key details about what has happening around Trump in the lead-up and during the attack on Congress' election certification vote.

Here's what comes next:

What documents did the committee want?

The documents in question were being held by the National Archives, which inherited them when Trump left office. The Archives was processing documents requested by the House on a rolling basis and consulting with both President Joe Biden and Trump about potential assertions of executive privilege.

Trump had initially sued to stop the release of three tranches where Biden declined to assert privilege after Trump had said that they should be kept secret. Those documents amounted to more than 700 pages of records detailing the goings on within the White House in the period the House is investigating. The records include activity logs, schedules, speech notes and three pages of handwritten notes from then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Other top officials' records in the batches are from then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, then-Deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, and even lists showing calls to the President and the Vice President.

When can the public see them?

For now, the documents will be out of public view and within the hands of investigators.

However, House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said Thursday that at some point the committee will post the documents publicly, but declined to specify the timeline for doing so.

The committee had already previewed its intention to release an interim report with their initial findings by the summer, with a final report set to come this fall. Public hearings, which could potentially include testimony from key witnesses, also may be in the works.

There's an incentive for lawmakers to keep secret for now the content of what they already have, so that witnesses cannot augment their testimony based on what the House already knows.

Why was the committee seeking the documents?

House lawmakers have said they are particularly interested in what was happening within the White House as the Capitol attack unfolded and what Trump knew about the potential it would get violent.

Committee leaders have said that they're probing the delay in Trump calling off the rioters and whether that amounted to a dereliction of duty. Furthermore, lawmakers have framed up the attack as the culmination of a months-long effort to overturn the results of the election -- and not just a riot that arose out of a vacuum.

The Trump White House documents may shed light on the other efforts made by the former President and his allies to disrupt Biden's win even before his supporters sought to impede Congress' certification of the results.

What does this mean for other people suing the committee or who aren't cooperating?

Wednesday's Supreme Court order showed that the justices weren't going to be willing to rubber stamp any legal challenge to the committee's work. Furthermore, the Supreme Court endorsed a key finding by the lower courts, that is now law that witnesses can't challenge in DC: that the House committee "plainly" has reason to seek January 6-related documents from the Trump White House, and that Trump's reasons aren't enough to block their requests.

On Thursday, Judge James Boasberg of the trial-level DC District Court acknowledged in a court challenge from a Trump spokesman against the House committee that it's settled law that the January 6 panel has a legitimate "legislative purpose."

"How could I decide differently from what the DC Circuit has decided there?" Boasberg said at a hearing Thursday, noting the Supreme Court "certainly didn't vacate" the finding that the House committee has a legislative purpose.

Still, more than a dozen witnesses whose records or testimony have been subpoenaed by the House are still challenging the committee's authority in court. Several of the cases make a claim about the makeup of the committee -- and its lack of members selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy -- that some lawyers in Trump-world believe is their best shot for impeding the committee's work.

Notably, the Supreme Court explicitly left open a question presented in Trump's case about the power of a former president to keep secret some of his presidential records even when the current President sides with transparency, making more court fights from recalcitrant witnesses or Trump himself still possible.

But the Supreme Court siding so firmly against Trump on his top officials' White House records could pen the dam towards more cooperation with the committee.

What are Trump's other options for hindering the committee's work?

The Supreme Court decision Wednesday rested on the DC Circuit's finding that Trump would have lost the case, even if he was the sitting president.

"Under any of the tests advocated by former President Trump, the profound interests in disclosure advanced by President Biden and the January 6th Committee far exceed his generalized concerns for Executive Branch confidentiality," the DC Circuit said, in a part of its opinion the Supreme Court pointed to support the release of the documents.

The DC Circuit knocked Trump for failing to make arguments specific to the content of the documents for why they should not be disclosed. So in theory, Trump could try his luck again for future tranches where he could argue why individual documents should fall under an executive privilege that trumps the needs of the committee. Questions about whether Trump advisers may be compelled to testify about their communications with Trump could also be further tested in court.

Nevertheless, key to Trump's strategy was delay, and running down the clock until Republicans retake the House in the midterms, as expected, and end the committee's investigation. But the courts rejected Trump's request with remarkable speed -- with the Supreme Court's order Wednesday coming down just three months after he filed the case.

This story has been updated Friday with details of the number of documents being transferred.

Arizona audit updates: Small group gathers at state Capitol for J6 rally

Arizona Republic

Months ago, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann had hoped for a fairly quick review of election procedures to look for ways the voting system could be improved. The Arizona audit launched in April and originally was expected to last a month. Here's the latest on the long-running political spectacle.

Follow coverage of the Arizona election audit by Republic reporters here.

2 p.m. Saturday: A day after audit announcements, small group rallies in support of Jan. 6 insurrection

Several dozen people gathered at the lawn of the Arizona state Capitol for the "Justice for January 6" rally Saturday. The event was a localized version of the sparsely-attended Washington, D.C., rally a week earlier, and similar events had been announced in other states.

The rally at the Arizona state Capitol started just after 2 p.m. with a prayer for those who are imprisoned.

Federal prosecutors have charged hundreds of people with crimes during the Jan. 6 rally, in which insurgents smashed doors and windows at the U.S. Capitol, assaulted police officers, stole property from congressional offices and threatened to kill elected officials including then-Vice President Mike Pence. Five people died during and after the events. Rioters that day stormed the building in an attempt to disrupt the proceedings, presided over by Pence, which officially certified the election of President Joe Biden and the defeat of former President Donald Trump.

Though the crowd at Arizona's capitol Saturday was small, a number of politicians spoke, including congressional candidate Jeff Zink, Arizona Rep. Walter Blackman and former state Rep. Anthony Kern.

The event also was attended by a group of self-described Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violent confrontations — and by a Phoenix man charged in the Jan. 6 raid who, as a condition of his release from jail, promised a federal court not to associate with Proud Boys.

Zink, who had previously told The Republic that he attended the Jan. 6 event, is a congressional candidate. He spoke about his son, who was arrested on charges related to being at the riot.

Zink said he condemns “everything about what happened with the destruction of the federal government building” but claimed that the violence was committed by Antifa members and has been mistakenly attributed to supporters of former President Donald Trump.

His son, Ryan Zink, had posted video online documenting his actions that day. In one, Ryan Zink stood in front of his camera phone, saying "We knocked down the gates! We're storming the Capitol!"

Ryan Zink, who lives in Texas, was later arrested and charged with several crimes related to the riot. In court records, prosecutors presented other online posts by Zink that they recovered, including one that said, "Literally inside the capitol shots fired on the floor there is a fire and gas and flash bangs have been used multiple serious injuries reported." In another private message, Ryan Zink wrote, "Broke down the doors, pushed Congress out of session I took two flash bangs I'm ok," and later, "I'm afraid the time for rioting is over better clean those guns and invest in some level 4 armor."

Jeff Zink said Saturday that his son is one of many whose lives and livelihoods have been upended unfairly because of their association with the events of Jan. 6.

Also speaking to the crowd was Micajah Jackson, a Phoenix resident who was charged after the Jan. 6 riot.

Micajah Jackson claimed that the “radical” U.S. government, which was under Trump at the time of the riot, used organizations including the FBI and Capitol and D.C. to “set up a coup against patriotic Americans like myself and hundreds of thousands of others that are still being persecuted.”

Jackson faces federal charges of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds and violent entry and disorderly conduct related to the riot. The federal criminal complaint against Jackson shows photographs of him walking outside the Capitol alongside members of the Proud Boys. He later told FBI agents he had traveled alone and acknowledged the Proud Boys had given him an orange armband to wear. The criminal complaint alleges Jackson walked next to a person who yelled through a bullhorn, "Whose streets?" The group responded by yelling, "Our streets."

As part of his release conditions, Jackson agreed to "not associate with the Proud Boys or any person the defendant knows to be associated with the Proud Boys."

Of the few dozen people at the rally, one group included people in "Proud Boys" T-shirts, and other speakers noted the group's presence.

On Saturday, Jackson said at the small rally, "We’re going to restore law and order in this country and bring God back in this nation and take back our local communities, our school boards, and put the America first agenda back in order.”

Kern, the Arizona politician, was photographed in multiple places outside the Capitol raid, but has repeatedly insisted he did not breach the building itself. On Saturday, he said, "I was there on Jan. 6. Jan. 6 is a big lie. It was not an insurrection. It was not traitorous."

Kern, who later participated in the Arizona Senate's partisan ballot recount, even though his name appeared on the ballots he was supposed to be counting, has refused to turn over messages or records about his travel to the Jan. 6 event.

His attorney, responding to public records requests from The Arizona Republic, said Kern attended the rally as a private figure who had "completed his active service as a public official at the time of the riots." In fact, though, Kern was still a member of the Legislature. He had run for re-election and lost, but the new Legislature was not sworn in until five days after the riot.

Couy Griffin, a county commissioner from New Mexico and leader of a group called “Cowboys for Trump,” also came to the Arizona event. Griffin was at the Jan. 6 raid. Later, at a Jan. 14 meeting of the Otero County Board of Commissioners, he told the meeting he planned pack firearms to return to Washington for the inauguration.

Though Griffin faces charges of unauthorized entry and disorderly conduct, on Saturday he said he had been at the Capitol to peacefully pray for the nation alongside thousands of others. Drawing cheers and applause from a few dozen people, he described Jan. 6 as “the most amazing day of my life.”

6:30 p.m.: Ken Bennett: Audit wasn't a 'failure'

Senate audit liaison and former Republican Secretary of State Ken Bennett outlined election laws and procedures that he said were not followed to the letter and suggested “constructive improvements.”

Among his concerns were 2,500 ballots without serial numbers and an incomplete chain of command from the county dating back to the election, he said. Whether those rise to violations of law, however, would be determined by the state attorney general.

Bennett, speaking through video conference, said that he was already hearing from disappointed voters who expected the audit would show a different result.

“I have already started to hear from people saying that the audit failed because it didn’t prove that the election was overturned, or that there was a different result,” Bennett said, nearing the end of roughly 3½ hours of reports on the audit.

“There was no predetermined outcome that if we didn’t find this or didn’t find that we have failed,” Bennett said.

Instead, he said, the review was aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the election process.

The fact that the hand count closely matched the county’s tally, he said, should not be seen as something bad.

“I don’t consider that a failure at all,” he said.

Bennett said that CEO Doug Logan and the Cyber Ninjas “have identified the most accurate hand counting process that’s ever been used in the country.” Bennett said that ran counter to the criticism from elections experts and some media personalities who mocked spinning ballots on rotating platforms.

Yet there is still work to do.

"Further investigation, with the cooperation of the county, hopefully, is necessary to determine whether ineligible voters were allowed to vote in the 2020 election,” Bennett said.

— Stacey Barchenger, Richard Ruelas

6:20 p.m.: Machine count confirms original Maricopa County vote tally

A machine recount of ballots cast by Maricopa County voters in 2020 confirmed the county’s count was accurate.

Randy Pullen said the review under his oversight “independently confirmed numbers that the county and Cyber Ninjas found in the ballot count.”

Pullen, the Senate audit’s spokesman and a former state GOP chairman, oversaw a 12-day machine recount in July using high-speed machines purchased by the Senate. The machine count tallied 121 votes fewer than the county's official results, which was “not surprising,” Pullen said.

Pullen said there were organizational issues with how batches of ballots were provided for his team’s review. Boxes would have six batches of ballots in them, when paperwork said they should have seven, Pullen said as one example.

The impact of those discrepancies? “If things were done more properly, this would be much easier, it could've been done faster,” he said.

Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, said Pullen was brought on board just in case there were discrepancies between what Maricopa County and Cyber Ninjas found in other ballot counts. To date, all those audits have disproven Trump’s claims of fraud.

— Stacey Barchenger

6:05 p.m.: Final report drops earlier reference to canvass effort

A draft report of the state Senate’s audit report states that results from a grassroots voter-canvassing effort were used to enhance the report, but that text is omitted from the final report published today.

The U.S. Department of Justice warned that knocking on doors as part of the audit could be considered illegal voter intimidation.

Cyber Ninjas, the chief contractor hired by the Senate to conduct the audit, said in its original statement of work that canvassing was important to determine whether the election was fair. Senate President Karen Fann rejected the use of canvassing after the DOJ sent its warning, postponing the operation indefinitely.

But that didn’t stop Liz Harris, a Chandler real estate and unsuccessful legislative candidate in 2020, from leading a group of hundreds of volunteers into neighborhoods around the Valley to ask voters about their election experience.

The Arizona Republic was invited out for a canvassing session with the group last month, but didn’t observe any problems among the voters interviewed by canvassers. Harris published a report earlier this month that claimed the county election featured significant numbers of invalid voters voting, or valid voters whose votes weren’t counted. Harris refused to release any of the underlying data for the overall claims. Two specific examples of alleged voter problems she provided were debunked by Maricopa County officials and the news media.

A leaked draft report by Cyber Ninjas states that Harris’ group chose on its own to do canvassing “to validate some of our results. We have integrated those results for the completeness of our report.”

However, in an interview with news media members after the Senate’s presentation, Fann reiterated that she halted the plan for canvassing after the DOJ warning, and she disputed that any draft report talked of integrating the canvassing results. The final report did not have such language, she said, adding that “sometimes you get misinformation” in draft reports.

The final report posted on AZSenateRepublicans.com says nothing about integrating the canvassing results, instead stating that because of Fann’s decision, “Cyber Ninjas was not able to perform any canvassing as part of the audit.”

Fann said she doesn’t know Harris personally, but told her she would love to have the canvassing results turned over to the state Attorney General’s Office. She emphasized “there is nothing of Liz Harris’s in that report.”

Yet if the draft report text wasn’t purely fictional, did Cyber Ninjas at some point use canvassing results in its findings — and then “un-integrate” them?

— Ray Stern

5:50 p.m.: As cyber issues detailed, county pushes back

Maricopa County officials indicated they were underwhelmed as the Arizona Senate hearing on the ballot review ended.

“So it’s over then?” the county tweeted, sharing a post from a reporter about the hand-count results.

County officials also quickly explained away many of the main “critical” findings in the report, including questions about the county’s voter rolls and election records.

They said that if Cyber Ninjas understood data analysis, it would have “performed standard processes to rule out situations that lead to faulty conclusions.”

“Unfortunately, AZ Senators gave unvetted, unqualified, private companies with known biases a platform to share misguided theories and faulty assumptions about Maricopa County elections,” one tweet read.

As CyFir CEO Ben Cotton attempted to raise questions about the security of the county’s election management system and voting machines, the county reminded people that the tabulation equipment “did its job.”

“Per Chairman (Jack Sellers’) earlier statement, ‘everything else is noise.’”

Cotton raised what he described as a host of security issues, including failing to update antivirus programs and failing to preserve security logs.

Cotton described tens of thousands of election-related files that were deleted. He said he didn’t know what happened to those deleted files and could not say whether they were archived or not.

CyFIR LLC is a Virginia-based digital security company contracted to work with Cyber Ninjas on the Arizona Senate’s audit.

“This may be part of a normal process,” Cotton said Friday, “but the timing of this become a bit suspect.”

Cotton said that it appeared an individual intentionally overwrote security logs. Cotton said he knew when these incidents happened and was able to use security footage to find images of people at computers.

“We have captured screenshots of Maricopa County people at the keyboards during those time periods,” Cotton said.

After that, there was applause from the gallery of spectators.

Cotton said that beyond the screenshots, his group had identified the employees by name.

“We will not release those names,” he said, “because we understand what the scrutiny is and what the impacts will be to those individuals.”

Cotton asserted that at least five devices used in the election had been connected to the internet. He found evidence of online visits to websites, including that of Maricopa County and Microsoft, on a portion of hard drives that was “unallocated,” or hidden from typical use.

Maricopa County officials countered Cotton’s claims. In a tweet on Friday, they said “Maricopa County strongly denies claims that … staff intentionally deleted data.”

Officials said that files were archived to make room on the county's election management system, not deleted. The Senate did not request the archived data, according to county spokesperson Megan Gilbertson.

"It had nothing to do with us deleting them," said Scott Jarrett, county elections director.

Although Cotton claimed he didn't have the information he needed to fully assess the county's network, officials have said that the county provided everything that competent auditors would have needed.

In a settlement with the county, the Senate announced that the county satisfied its subpoenas.

In response to Cotton's claims that some county machines showed some internet connections, the county tweeted that these were not machines that are part of the county's air-gapped election management system.

For example, one of the machines was the server for the Recorder's Office website. The county tweeted: "We shouldn't have to explain this."

— Jen Fifield, Richard Ruelas, Robert Anglen

4:30 p.m.: Brnovich said findings are under review

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Friday his office will review allegations of election fraud raised by Cyber Ninjas in its draft audit report of Maricopa County’s 2020 election results.

“I will take all necessary actions that are supported by the evidence and where I have legal authority. Arizonans deserve to have their votes accurately counted and protected,” Brnovich said in a written statement.

The Arizona Senate hired Cyber Ninjas to lead a hand recount of all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County last year. The company concluded that President Joe Biden won the election and former President Donald Trump lost by nearly the same margins the county reported before the audit began.

Brnovich said the office’s Election Integrity Unit will “thoroughly review the Senate’s information and evidence,” adding that he could not comment on specific allegations.

Copies of the draft audit report obtained and reviewed Thursday by The Arizona Republic recommended that “several specific findings of our audit be further reviewed by the Arizona Attorney General for a possible investigation.”

Among those are questions about mail-in ballots from voters who moved in and out of the state prior to registration deadlines and allegations that more ballots were returned than went out.

Mail-in votes from voters who moved within Maricopa County prior to the registration deadline.

Mail-in votes from voters who moved out of Arizona prior to registration deadline.

Mail-in votes from voters who moved within Arizona but out of Maricopa County prior to registration deadline.

— Robert Anglen

4 p.m.: Cyber Ninjas CEO confirms Biden win, makes recommendations

Doug Logan, CEO of Florida-based cybersecurity firm Cyber Ninjas, confirmed in the beginning of his presentation that President Joe Biden won in Maricopa County in the company’s hand recount of votes.

Former President Donald Trump lost votes and Biden gained votes in the hand count results, widening Biden’s victory.

Logan led the months-long review of all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County. That included a complete recount of the presidential and U.S. Senate votes, and an examination of the ballots that included examining many conspiracy theories.

He started by explaining there is more to come from Cyber Ninjas, even after Friday. Under a settlement agreement with the county, the Arizona Senate is able to ask questions about the county’s routers and network logs. This is intended to double-check that the county’s voting machines and election results were not connected to the internet.

Logan outlined several areas where he thinks the state and counties can better secure their election data.

In the draft report that was leaked to the media on Thursday, Cyber Ninjas did not say that they found any internet connections based on their examination of voting machines and the network information it already had access to.

— Jen Fifield

3:45 p.m.: Virginia, Georgia Republicans on hand for report

Several members of the national “Election Integrity Caucus” flew to Phoenix for Friday’s review of the state Senate’s election audit, hoping to gather information they’ll use for election reviews in their own states.

Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, was a founding member of the group and traveled to Virginia last month to push for an Arizona-style audit there. Rogers said at the time that the group reminded her of the Continental Congress. She told conservative media it would be used to start audits like Arizona’s in every state.

Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, a Republican who traveled to Phoenix to see the ballot review this summer, said the group was in the Senate gallery on Friday to “hear for ourselves what the Arizona brave legislators are going to show us today.”

She said she didn’t want the information “filtered through the fake media.”

The group expects to put out a press release this week after getting a briefing from the group’s Arizona delegation. Even if the final report is similar to draft reports that show Biden still won, “there are concerns that are out there in Virginia,” she said.

“We said that no matter what the results were, we can do better,” she said. “I’ve been committed to fully finding out what happened so it never happens again.”

YG Nyghtstorm, a Republican candidate for Congress in Georgia, is also part of the group. He said that when a large number of voters don’t trust the system, “you owe it to the electorate to some kind of investigation.”

— Ray Stern

3:15 p.m.: Engineer questions ballot signatures

A controversial engineer tied to election conspiracies opened the Arizona Senate’s audit hearing Friday by raising questions about a series of “anomalies” found in Maricopa County mail-in ballots.

Shiva Ayyadurai, or "Dr. Shiva" as he is known to far-right adherents, said his review of ballots found thousands of ballot envelopes with missing signatures, scribbles and even some duplicates that might have been counted in the county’s 2020 election.

Shiva, who said he has four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said his company, EchoMail Inc., reviewed 1.9 million mail-in ballots “for signature presence detection.” He outlined 11 so-called anomalies that he said deserve further review and suggested the Senate undertake an even broader audit.

The Arizona Senate signed a $50,000 contract with Ayyadurai on Aug. 27 to review signatures on the envelopes on early ballots sent to the county.

Ayyadurai gained prominence in the early days of the pandemic for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines. He criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a tool of the pharmaceutical industry intent on making vaccines mandatory.

In a YouTube video that racked up more than 6 million views in 2020, Ayyadurai accused Fauci of being a "deep state" operative and falsely claimed vitamin C could be used to treat COVID -19.

He ran two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts and has announced his intent to run again in 2024. After the 2020 primary, he wrongly claimed on Twitter the state had illegally deleted 1 million ballot images from his race.

Shiva, in a 50-minute presentation, laid out his findings for the Senate, which he ended by asking a series of rhetorical questions for county elections officials and making recommendations to the Senate.

The county did not provide data to Shiva for his review.

Shiva stopped short of accusing the county of wrongdoing, and even said at one point, “I don’t want to accuse that.” He also noted that “there could be an explanation of this” in regard to at least one anomaly.

Among his findings:

The county received and might have counted duplicate ballots.

His company detected more signature scribbles than the county reported.

Some ballots came from voters with matching addresses and signatures but different voter IDs.

Blank signature boxes were stamped verified and approved.

The number of blank signatures “surged” by 25% after Nov. 4 and through Nov. 9.

Shiva said determining whether these issues indicated fraud or not would require a more thorough audit of signatures.

“A full signature verification audit is absolutely necessary,” he said.

— Robert Anglen

2:45 p.m.: Fann presents Brnovich with 'urgent issues'

Before the first audit report was presented, state Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, sent Attorney General Attorney Mark Brnovich a letter outlining five "urgent issues" that she had identified from the contractors' work.

However, it was unclear how some of those issues would qualify for an investigation into broken laws, as many of them appeared to suggest system improvements.

For example, she suggested the state should have a team of cybersecurity experts to ensure election materials are protected. She recommended better maintenance of the voter-registration rolls and protocols to ensure election materials be preserved in the interest of potential future audits and transparency.

She called the signature-verification process “imperfect” and said signatures should only be accepted if they closely match the voter signature on file with elections officials. That appeared to be one of the issues that the attorney general could look into, Fann suggested.

Fann said the Senate is already at work on legislation to ensure Arizona has “an unimpeachable election process.”

— Mary Jo Pitzl

2:35 p.m.: Celebrity news, sort of

And now for a celebrity news break.

Shiva Ayyadurai, known as Dr. Shiva, who testified Friday about ballot signature verification was married for three years to Fran Drescher, best known as TV’s "The Nanny."

“The first year was bliss, the second year was agony and ecstasy, and the third year was just agony," Drescher told New York magazine.

The couple divorced in 2016.

— Richard Ruelas

2:25 p.m.: Democratic organization hits GOP for election doubts

The Democratic Attorneys General Association sought Friday to cast blame for undermining public confidence in elections far past Arizona.

The DAGA called out 18 Republican attorneys general, including Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, for refusing to condemn or actively spreading disinformation about alleged 2020 election problems.

In a news release timed with the review of the state Senate’s election audit, the Washington D.C.-based group pointed out that former President Donald Trump is pressuring Brnovich to launch a criminal investigation into the audit report.

Brnovich, who is running for U.S. Senate, has walked a fine line between patronizing election deniers and claiming he’s just interested in ensuring fair elections. He antagonized audit critics last month after issuing a decision that Maricopa County officials had to comply with a Senate subpoena to turn over routers and network logs allegedly needed for the audit.

The 18 Republican attorneys general in some cases “explicitly poured fuel on the fire by joining lawsuits calling the election results into question — leading to things like today’s dangerous Maricopa County ‘audit,’” said DAGA co-chairs Massachusetts AG Maura Healey and Nevada AG Aaron Ford in a joint statement. “Their actions undermine the fabric of our democracy and Constitution, and we call on them to stop them immediately.”

As the state’s top legal officers, Republican AGs shouldn’t “pander to a dangerous, far-right political agenda” as they’re doing, and should “call out” the audit as a “dangerous political stunt meant to further divide this country.”

Brnovich announced Friday that he would review the audit report’s alleged finding of election problems.

— Ray Stern

2:15 p.m.: County GOP officials call for Ward to resign

Maricopa County Supervisors Clint Hickman and Bill Gates called on Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward to resign after her support for the ballot review.

Hickman and Gates, both Republicans, said her baseless claims of a fraudulent election, along with GOP electoral losses during her tenure as chair and promotion of conspiracies is harming the Republican Party.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden and Democrats picked up a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona.

A state GOP spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic’s request for comment.

Ward and the state Republican Party have spent months fundraising off the ballot review, but it appears those funds have not paid for the audit, Hickman and Gates said.

They said her continued push of a false narrative is harmful to the Republican Party and democracy more broadly.

They also urged Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who serves as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, to join them in their calls. A spokesperson for Ducey did not immediately comment.

“She's made videos, she's questioned our integrity, she’s asked if maybe we should be picked up by law enforcement, she’s questioned the machinery and Dominion,” Hickman said. “If it comes out that Biden won by even more, Kelli Ward needs to go. It is a track record of losing. She's only won one race (as a state senator), and that was in Mohave County many years ago.

“She has had an issue with creating a track record of victory and she’s been using the party apparatus to fundraise for something that rips apart our democracy, and that’s what this grift is.”

Gates said Ward’s leadership is doing long-term harm to the party and could further divide Republicans heading into the 2022 midterm elections.

“She’s not focused on winning elections — she never has been,” Gates said. “She’s focused on tearing down other Republicans. She spends so much time doing that and those around her. And so, it's time to turn the page.”

He said the release of the Senate’s election review findings is a good opportunity to do so.

“She’s going to continue to relitigate November 2020 and that is a recipe for disaster,” he said.

Ward narrowly won re-election to retain her position as chair in January after a race that went to a runoff.

— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

1:40 p.m.: Fann still claims troubling problems

During her opening remarks, Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, acknowledged that draft reports of the ballot review were mostly correct, but said the public has not focused on the many irregularities uncovered in the review by Cyber Ninjas.

Draft reports leaked Thursday showed Cyber Ninjas effectively confirmed Maricopa County’s final tally showing President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Maricopa County, as the county reported 10 months ago.

The final numbers for each candidate differed slightly, and the Florida company hired by the Arizona Senate emphasized it found troubling irregularities as it went through the 2.1 million ballots.

Fann called the alleged irregularities a key part of ensuring election integrity. Fann assailed Maricopa County officials for resisting the audit as she originally envisioned it, and said the report presents matters still demanding attention.

“The interesting fact is truth is truth, numbers are numbers, and we’ve said that from Day One,” she said. “What you have not seen and you have not heard is about the statutes that were broken, how chain of custody was not followed, how we had a number of issues, which is why people questioned the ballots in the elections.”

County officials have long said they wanted an audit from an accredited firm. Cyber Ninjas has never before conducted an election review.

State Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, lamented the lack of cooperation during his opening remarks.

“It is unfortunate that this is an incomplete audit,” he said.

— Ronald J. Hansen

1:30 p.m.: Presentation draws Senate spectators

Several Arizona state senators showed up to hear the ballot review presentation in person in the Senate's main chamber.

Seated at their desks were Republican Sens. Paul Boyer of Glendale, Vince Leach of Tucson, Kelly Townsend of Mesa, Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff, and Nancy Barto of Phoenix.

Floor privileges were granted to former lawmakers Anthony Kern and David Livingston.

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., took a seat against the Senate's west wall.

Kern briefly served as an audit volunteer before being disqualified since it is against protocol for politicians to be reviewing ballots on which they were listed.

Other senators said they would stay home and watch the proceedings online.

— Mary Jo Pitzl

1:10 p.m.: White House downplays ballot review

During her regular press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki seemed to downplay the draft results of the months-long ballot review:

"It confirmed what we have known for some time, and that millions and millions of people in the country know," she said Friday during a White House briefing, shortly before the Arizona Senate proceedings kicked off.

Asked if there’s anything the federal government could do to address calls from Republicans pushing for similar reviews in other states, she said: “I’ll have to check and see if there’s anything substantive that we would have the power to do.”

—Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

1 p.m.: Cyber Ninjas reports about to be made public

The long-awaited ballot review results from Cyber Ninjas, the Florida company hired by the Arizona state Senate, are about to be posted.

After leaked draft reports showed President Joe Biden won Maricopa County by a slightly wider margin over former President Donald Trump on Thursday, the big question is whether those reports were accurate.

For his part, Trump indicated in a statement on Friday that the report found “significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD!” The fraud, he wrote in another statement, is “many more times than the so-called margin of “victory.’”

Democrats and election experts have eyed the draft reports warily, noting that Cyber Ninjas has never conducted an election audit before and the Arizona ballot review has been riddled with problems.

If the leaked reports are correct, they suggest the Cyber Ninjas tally was little different than the county’s certified results.

Including Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian candidate, the draft numbers were about 600 votes different than the county’s official results.

With nearly 2.1 million votes cast, that suggests Cyber Ninjas disagreed with one vote out of every 3,700 ballots counted.

— Ronald J. Hansen

State Democratic leaders launched a blistering attack on the draft reports of the state Senate's partisan election audit before the expected release of an official report today.

Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Rios and House Majority Leader Reginald Bolding, Jr., addressed reporters outside of county headquarters in Phoenix, pulling few punches as they criticized the process and demanded accountability from Republican leaders who support it.

Gallardo described the audit as "nonsense" and a "circus" that has "undermined democracy" and cost millions of taxpayer dollars. He wasn't sure what would be in the final report presented by the Senate today, but predicted it would be "BS."

"The one thing we're going to get out of the review is this: Our elections were safe, secure, and accurate, and (former President) Donald Trump lost Arizona, period," Gallardo said. "And there is nothing else we can do, and nothing else any of the election experts can do to change the minds of the folks who can't accept the fact that their candidate lost."

The conspiracy promoters pushed Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, into a process she had "no control whatsoever" of, and that decisions were being made by Trump-supporting groups and people.

Rios and Bolding, both Phoenix Democrats, predicted that the audit and the "embarrassing" way it turned out would negatively affect Republicans in important elections in 2022, such as the challenge to U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and the race for governor.

"We need to change the actual people who are running for office and let them know that they are so far to the radical right that it is not consistent with what Arizonans are asking for," Bolding said.

Rios said Republican lawmakers will use the report to justify new legislation designed to "suppress the vote" of people of color, senior citizens and disabled people.

"At the end of the day, they lost, and they know without suppressing the vote ... that they're going to continue to lose elections," she said.

Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed two bills in this year's legislative session that Democrats saw as creating significant obstacles to voting in the state, including one that changes the rules of the former Permanent Early Voting List.

Bolding said Ducey and other Republicans who may not have supported the audit, but didn't condemn it, either, can no longer "hide" from voters and would have to choose whether they would continue to tolerate, or more, election-conspiracy rhetoric.

— Ray Stern

11:30 a.m.: Sen. Mark Kelly weighs in

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., reiterated his stance that Arizona conducts professional and fair elections ahead of the Senate's 1 p.m. release of the ballot review findings.

The review of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County focused on both the presidential race and the 2020 U.S. Senate contest, where Kelly unseated Republican Sen. Martha McSally.

“In the nearly ten months since this election was certified by Republicans and Democrats, I have been focused on doing my job — helping Arizona beat COVID-19 and rebuild our economy," a statement from Kelly to The Arizona Republic said. "Our state does elections well. These baseless conspiracies should not be used to justify any further attempts to undermine our democracy.”

— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

11:05 a.m.: 'Fed up' Patriot Party supporters rally at Capitol

Hundreds of people went to the state Capitol for a rally that organizers said was in support of medical freedom and election integrity hours before results from the audit by Cyber Ninjas was set to be presented to the Senate.

The Capitol area was a sea of American flags and signs condemning COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Booths were set up to sell shirts and hats, and to sign attendees up for the Patriot Party of Arizona.

A speaker just after 10 a.m. asked attendees to put pressure on Gov. Doug Ducey to call a special session to address vaccine mandates, saying that people are “fed up.”

Sen. Kelly Townsend addressed the crowd and asked veterans and parents of a “vaccine-injured child” to stand with her, adding that she is both.

Townsend described President Joe Biden’s administration as “fascist,” saying that she and others in attendance would not comply with vaccine mandates.

Steve Daniels, chair of the Patriot Party of Arizona, said that legislators and candidates who spoke at the rally were asked to sign a pledge to support his group beforehand.

A dustup happened after Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake entered the stage without having signed the pledge.

Daniels showed her the contract as she took the stage and she declined to sign it, saying it would be “irresponsible” to sign it before reading it in its entirety.

After some in the crowd continued heckling Lake, an organizer took the microphone and asked for them to allow Lake to finish.

“I’m not afraid of bullies, guys,” Lake told the crowd.

Before appearing to cut her speech short, Lake expressed confidence that the results of the audit would show fraud. She said as governor she would “prosecute everyone involved” and push back against vaccine mandates.

— BrieAnna J. Frank

10:00 a.m.: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema weighs in

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., weighed in on the draft results of the GOP Senate-ordered review of Maricopa County ballots, saying the 2020 election "was a success" and a "demonstration of the will of Arizona voters."

In a written statement to The Arizona Republic ahead of the Senate's official release of the ballot review results, she thanked state and local election officials for their work. She noted the exercise could result in an erosion of public trust in the nation's election systems.

"It has been deeply troubling to see state leaders wasting time and taxpayer money sowing doubt about the election when no credible evidence of irregularities exists," her statement said. ".... The Arizona election produced bipartisan results, in which members of both parties won races — and these results have been confirmed by stakeholders across the political spectrum."

Eight challenges contesting the state's election results were heard by both federal and state courts, she noted. All were either dismissed or withdrawn.

"Those of us who are trusted with elected office are, first and foremost, public servants. We serve our constituents — we do not seek to substitute our personal ambitions for the will of the American people," she said.

— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

9:30 a.m.: Congressional panel wants Cyber Ninjas CEO to testify

A congressional committee that has for months been seeking information relating to the company conducting Arizona's long-running ballot review now wants the firm's CEO to testify next month about the matter.

Citing his repeated "obstruction," the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter late Thursday to Doug Logan, the head of Cyber Ninjas, saying his appearance has become necessary to understand what it characterized as a "questionable audit."

The Democrat-controlled panel's request came a day ahead of the scheduled release of his company's review for the Arizona Senate and signals the national concerns among Democrats over its implications. The committee wants him to testify at an Oct. 7 hearing.

— Ronald J. Hansen

8:35 a.m., Sept. 24: What to expect as election audit results are presented

In a contentious battle between the Arizona Senate and Maricopa County supervisors earlier this year, the Senate prevailed in gaining access to the county's ballots and election materials.

The Senate's audit contractors recounted the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County in the presidential and U.S. Senate races and examined each ballot. They also examined all ballot tabulating machines and reviewed signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes.

Four reports are expected to be presented beginning at 1 p.m. Friday by contractors and Senate representatives. Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, and Judiciary Chairman Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, will preside over the event.

Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, will present results on the hand count and examination of ballots.

Audit spokesperson Randy Pullen will present results from a separate machine count of ballots.

Conspiracy theorist Shiva Ayyadurai will present results from a review of envelope signatures.

Senate liaison Ken Bennett will report his observations on whether election law was followed.

— Mary Jo Pitzl

12 p.m., Sept. 23: GOP gubernatorial candidate wants statewide audit

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon — who is seeking the GOP nomination for Arizona governor — called for an election audit and canvass to expand across the state on Thursday, one day before Senate leaders overseeing the audit in Maricopa County are scheduled to make the results public.

Though he has not seen the results of the election review, Salmon also used the impending announcement to pledge that if he is elected governor, he would “not sign any other bills, including the state budget, until additional, enhanced election protections” like requiring identification for all forms of voting are in place.

Salmon — who declined to say who won the presidential race in Arizona when asked by The Arizona Republic — said he believes there were “serious discrepancies” in the election. Those call for a statewide audit, he said, to “identify and address the problems taking place in Arizona’s elections.”

While Maricopa County’s votes helped hand the state’s electoral votes to Joe Biden by a small margin, Trump won 10 of Arizona's 15 counties, often by massive margins.

Polling shows a majority of Arizona Republicans believe there was fraud in the election, making so-called “election integrity” an easy issue for Republican candidates like Salmon to support ahead of the August 2022 primary election.

In a Thursday podcast interview with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, which was also recorded on video, Salmon told Bannon that “if we’re going to try to contest this election, we know it’s probably going to end up in the courts at some point and time and we need a lot more forensic evidence.” Salmon’s campaign did not immediately respond to a question about what new legal claims could be made.

The election result has been certified by Gov. Doug Ducey — also a Republican — and multiple court challenges were tossed out by Arizona courts.

— Stacey Barchenger

2:30 p.m., Sept. 22: Are plans for a 'nullification committee' afoot?

A recent Phoenix meeting of the John Birch Society, which once was a group on the far fringes of the political right, turned into a shouting match over the election review and other issues.

A video of the confrontation posted on Facebook by Daniel McCarthy, who has unsuccessfully run for office in Arizona, might be most notable for showing the elected officials and others who attended the meeting and what some of them had to say.

One state representative says during the raucous 12-minute video that he is working on a “nullification committee" for elections laws while another says she is working to eliminate voting machines.

But before that, there were plenty of fireworks with McCarthy criticizing the election audit.

The video, which appears to be filmed by an associate of McCarthy, begins with him shouting at Senate audit liaison Ken Bennett as Bennett leaves the room. McCarthy asks if Bennett will provide the two dozen or so people there with an update.

Bennett says he has to leave for a meeting to receive a preliminary update on the audit, but McCarthy launches into an outburst that interrupts the meeting despite multiple participants asking him to be quiet.

“A lot of power brokers in the state are here. A lot of people are quite curious about this grift that’s been running,” McCarthy says to Bennett. “Let’s have a conversation on what we can do to install some confidence rather than running a massive grift with an audit where you guys are raising a ton of money and the Republican Party is raising a ton of money, and there’s a bunch of shenanigans.”

The meeting appears to be in a private room at a restaurant. Bennett leaves after the brief exchange with McCarthy.

McCarthy asserts that the election was stolen from Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers in Arizona didn’t do enough to prevent the fraud. There has been no evidence of fraud in Arizona’s election, and multiple lawsuits over the matter were dismissed for lack of evidence.

Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor takes little interest as he finishes his meal while the men shout across the room.

Mesa Republican Verl Farnsworth tries to quiet McCarthy, telling him his outburst is not on the agenda. The two exchange words.

The video then shows another Arizona Corporation Commissioner, Justin Olson, get up from his meal and leave.

McCarthy begins railing against COVID-19 vaccines and people who wear masks.

Gen. Michael McGuire is there, and McCarthy criticizes him for wearing a mask during an appearance with Gov. Doug Ducey. McGuire retired as director of the Arizona National Guard to run for the U.S. Senate. He keeps his back to McCarthy and doesn’t speak to him.

Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, tells McCarthy the Legislature is working on a “nullification committee.”

He didn't explain what he meant by that at the meeting. Reached Thursday, Fillmore said the committee's duty would be to determine which federal laws were acceptable to the state, including election laws.

"With H.R. 1 where the federal government is trying to have some extreme overreach and take control of elections, there might be some reason there that states might want to nullify that position," Fillmore said.

H.R. 1 passed the House in Congress but not the Senate. The law addresses voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics.

In the video, McCarthy then singles out Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, who explains that lawmakers have made vaccine mandates illegal and are working on election issues.

Parker says lawmakers are trying to eliminate the use of machines in voting.

“We are working on that,” she says when asked specifically about machine voting. “Yes, we are trying to get rid of the machines.”

— Ryan Randazzo

5:45 p.m., Sept. 17: Details about audit report presentation are released

At the Sept. 24 roll out of the results of the review of Maricopa County's 2020 election, three men will present the results of their work.

Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan will present the findings of the hand count done of the county's 2.1 million ballots — both how the votes added up for the presidential and U.S. Senate candidates and the number of ballots.

Audit spokesman/fundraiser Randy Pullen will discuss the results of the machine count of ballots. Senate President Karen Fann ordered the count after she learned that the Ninjas' hand count of the number of ballots didn't match the official result.

Fann, R-Prescott, said the count would serve as a "check" on the Ninjas' work. The tally was done on high-speed paper counting machines that cost the Senate about $30,000. Pullen said his presentation would not take much time.

Checking in via Zoom will be Shiva Ayyadura, whose firm, EchoMail, did a review of the signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes. "Dr. Shiva" as he is known to his followers, has subscribed to election conspiracies that the 2020 election was stolen.

Ayyadura was hired by the Senate for the signature review on a $50,000 contract. He also was a subcontractor for the Cyber Ninjas, hired to review digital images of all 2.1 million ballots.

— Mary Jo Pitzl

4:35 p.m., Sept. 16: Election official seeks inquiry after voter data posted online

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is asking Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate after voter registration records were posted online.

Voter registration records known as the “voter file” are available to the public, but it's a felony to publish the information on the internet. The voter file includes the name, address and party affiliation of registered voters, along with some phone numbers. It shows whether the person has voted in recent elections but not the candidates and issues they supported.

“It appears that in this case, information from a public records request may have been posted in violation of state law,” Richer said in a statement Thursday. "I trust the Attorney General will look into this and take any necessary action.”

Richer did not name the group responsible for the alleged violation, but an expansive list of voters remained accessible Thursday afternoon on a website posting podcasts, articles and other materials in support of the Republican Party.

Richer and Brnovich are both Republicans.

— Associated Press

4:15 p.m., Sept. 16: Audit volunteers celebrate — just don't call it that

State Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, posted pictures on Twitter of a gathering for audit volunteers that apparently took place Wednesday evening at the American Way Market in Chandler, and Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was in attendance.

Logan's smiling face was captured among Rogers' photos just hours after his lawyer told the Arizona Court of Appeals there was no way Cyber Ninjas could comply with a court order to produce emails, texts and other communications from the audit by Friday. Logan was just too busy, his lawyer said.

Logan and his company on Aug. 25 were ordered by a court to preserve all such records in the event their legal battle to keep them secret was snuffed out by the courts, which is what happened this week when the Arizona Supreme Court declined to take up their appeal. It was the fifth court loss for the Senate in its attempts to withhold the documents.

Logan's lawyer told the court that Cyber Ninjas probably needed 30 days to produce the records, partly because the company still was working on the audit report.

When The Arizona Republic noted on Twitter that Logan was seen celebrating the audit that has yet to release results, Senate President Karen Fann took exception. She texted a reporter, writing that "it was not a celebration party."

Fann, R-Prescott, was also photographed at the event.

She said it was planned to thank those who volunteered as observers at the audit. She didn't directly answer when asked whether the observers sent to the audit by the Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs were invited, but it seems unlikely.

So the "event" for "thanking the people that worked on the audit," in Fann's words (which Rogers described as a "reunion"), was not a "celebration." Noted.

Meanwhile, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge asked Fann's lawyer in court Thursday when the final audit report would come out, and after a direct question from the judge, the lawyer said Sept. 24. Not long after he made that disclosure, television personality Christina Bobb from One America News posted on Twitter that the report would come out that day, as did Rogers.

— Ryan Randazzo

3 p.m., Sept. 15: Maricopa County still mulling over subpoena request

Maricopa County's Board of Supervisors has met three times in closed-door sessions trying to decide whether to further comply with Arizona Senate Republicans' election-related subpoenas that include a demand to access county routers.

A county spokesperson said no action was expected Wednesday after the third closed-door meeting executive session.

A lot is on the line. Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the supervisors last month they were breaking the law by not fully responding to the subpoenas. He is threatening to withhold state funding if the supervisors don’t comply by Sept. 27.

The state funding in jeopardy accounts for 42% of the county’s operating budget, affecting public safety, public health, courts, elections and all other county operations.

Supervisors and other county leaders have been mum on what they might do, but a county spokesperson said last week the options include responding further, trying to negotiate with the senators or filing a lawsuit.

The county has given the Senate nearly everything asked for under the subpoenas, including the ballots and voting machines that launched the audit, but not the county’s routers.

County officials have said it would be a security risk to hand over the routers. They also say the Senate’s contractors don’t need them — they already gave them the network logs, voting machines and other materials that would allow the contractors to ensure the voting system wasn’t connected to the internet during the November general election.

The county’s election system and voting machines don’t use routers to transmit election results, and an independent audit in February found that no internet connections occurred during the election.

— Jen Fifield

Noon, Sept. 15: Too busy to provide proof of voting irregularities?

After former President Donald Trump's defeat in November, Matt Braynard, a former campaign staffer of Trump's, got national attention for the claims he made about voting problems in several states, including Arizona. His findings were mentioned recently in a controversial report by Liz Harris on voter canvassing in metro Phoenix.

But anyone looking for evidence that backs up Braynard's claims will have to wait.

As he told The Arizona Republic, he's busy until Sept. 18, the day he’ll lead the “Justice for J6” rally in Washington D.C. in support of more than 570 people who face federal charges for participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“I'm in the political business and that means I can't drop everything I'm doing right now to satisfy some local reporter's questions,” said Braynard, the founder and executive director of Look Ahead America, a Trump-supporting voter outreach organization, in a Sept. 11 message to The Arizona Republic via social media. “I will let you know when I am free to address that stuff but I don't have any time right now.”

Harris' report states that Braynard phone-surveyed Republican voters who didn't have a record of voting and allegedly found that half said they did actually vote. That finding, however, didn’t come with any data to back it up. And if Braynard has released such data, he’s not releasing it now.

Braynard claimed in direct message that he “did release it but finding that out would require journalism.” He subsequently cut off communication.

Law enforcement officials expect about 700 people to show up for the D.C. rally this Saturday.

In December, Braynard’s supposed findings in Georgia were debunked in a virtual hearing with lawmakers when Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen explained how she’d checked on his multiple examples of claimed voter fraud and found them to be erroneous.

Harris hasn’t yet released any voter data that could be used to verify the claimed canvassing results of her operation, either, and the only two specific examples she gave of problems withered under basic scrutiny.

— Ray Stern

5:30 p.m., Sept. 14: Talk of Pima County canvassing raises questions

State Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, recently told podcast host and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that he’s "talking to the Pima County GOP" about canvassing voters there.

If so, that's news to the leader of the Pima County Republican Party.

Finchem, who Monday received Trump’s endorsement in his campaign for Arizona secretary of state, made the remarks Sept. 10 following the release of a canvassing report by Liz Harris, a Chandler real estate agent, that relied on dubious statistics and unverifiable statements to advance the conspiracy theory of widespread election fraud.

Shelley Kais, chair of the Pima County Republican Party, said she’s not aware of any canvassing operation and nobody in the organization had discussed it, as far as she knows.

Since December, Harris has led a team of election deniers into Valley neighborhoods to knock on doors and ask voters questions in what the U.S. Department of Justice has warned could be acts of voter intimidation.

While the DOJ warning led the state Senate to cancel canvassing plans as part of the audit of Maricopa County votes, Harris has carried out the plan that Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor for the audit, previously said was an “important” part of its scope of work.

Now, Finchem, who was outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and who calls himself the “vanguard” of voter integrity, claims he’s in discussions to launch a door-knocking operation in Pima County with “evidence that Dr. Shiva’s worked on.”

“We hope to release that next week,” he told Bannon on Sept. 10. “It’s big.”

Finchem had mentioned during a separate Aug. 24 interview with Bannon that “we’ve been conducting” an investigation into alleged problems with voting in Pima County. He didn’t return a message Tuesday inquiring about his statements.

Presumably, in the Sept. 10 podcast, Finchem was talking about Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, who helped give a presentation to Arizona lawmakers on Nov. 30 with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, about supposed flaws in the election.

Audit spokesperson and former Arizona GOP Chair Randy Pullen told The Arizona Republic last week that Finchem “hooked us up” with Ayyadurai. The Senate signed a contract with Ayyadurai in August to review signatures on the envelopes of 1.9 million early ballots sent to the county.

The Pima County Recorder’s Office didn’t return messages on Tuesday, and it’s unclear who, if anyone, has contracted Ayyadurai to investigate the 2020 election in Pima County.

Asked if she thought widespread voting problems had occurred in Pima County in 2020, Kais said she “didn’t know enough about the process” to answer. Still, “irregularities” in the election are a “really huge issue,” she said. “We need to get to the bottom of it.”

— Ray Stern

5 p.m., Sept. 14: Supreme Court rejects appeal on Cyber Ninjas' records

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the state Senate's bid to keep records from Cyber Ninjas and other contractors working on the election audit out of public view.

After the decision was announced, Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, said she was preparing to comply with an order from a lower court to release the documents.

The Senate had refused to turn over records from the audit that are in the possession of its contractor, Cyber Ninjas, and other subcontractors, even after two Maricopa County Superior Court judges in separate cases and the Appeals Court all ruled they are public documents.

After the Appeals Court's ruling, the Senate asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. The justices discussed the matter in a private conference Tuesday and decided not to take it up.

— Ryan Randazzo

11 a.m., Sept. 13: Report makes big claims about voters, offers no proof

Election conspiracy theorists hailed the arrival of a report on a voter-canvassing effort trying to help the Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 election.

But the report failed to include any way to verify its dubious findings, and the only two specific examples it provided of alleged ballot problems were swiftly debunked.

The woman behind the canvassing effort, Liz Harris, refused to release data by which her claims in the Sept. 8 report could be checked. The new report also claims that the canvass team "can make sworn affidavits supporting these findings readily available," but Harris refused to release those, either, or comment about the report to The Arizona Republic.

The Maricopa County Recorder's and Assessor's offices ripped the report in a joint statement Friday, but noted that officials would investigate the findings — if they could.

— Ray Stern

9 a.m., Sept. 13: GOP state senator targeted with threat

A Republican state senator who has criticized the ongoing review of the 2020 election was threatened in an email sent the same day prominent conspiracy theorist Seth Keshel urged his followers to contact her.

The Sept. 9 email to Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, begins with a racial slur.

It goes on to say, "You have one chance to give the American people the Audit report or were coming for you, we know where you live, we know where you get groceries, and we know where your family lives. You better do the right thing or your [sic] going to feel the consequences. You Understand? We the people are no longer willing to play."

It's only the latest threat against an Arizona public official since Trump lost the November election here, sparking a backlash by supporters across the country who demanded a review of the results.

The Department of Public Safety's threat mitigation unit is reviewing the email, a department spokesperson said.

— Ray Stern

10 a.m., Sept. 10: Many documents released by Senate inconsequential to audit

The Arizona Senate turned over thousands of mundane and inconsequential emails in response to a court order making records from its election audit public.

At the same time, it withheld texts, emails and memos between lawmakers and others, including Cyber Ninjas, the company contracted to lead the audit. The Senate provided a 269-page report listing specific documents it chose not to release because of what it called legislative privilege, attorney-client privilege or other privilege.

These documents could be critical to understanding what was behind the recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the 2020 election.

Among the records released were thousands of copies of a subscription journal sent daily to legislators, chain emails from constituents, texts from media members and conspiracy-laden screeds from around the world.

The records were released on Aug. 31 in response to lawsuits filed by the Arizona Republic and a nonprofit watchdog group called American Oversight. A team of six Arizona Republic reporters spent several days going through each of the 22,000 documents.

Several thousand records were copies of The Yellow Sheet, a subscription-only political tip sheet published by the Arizona News Service, along with emails from legislative staffers confirming it had been sent.

Emails were almost exclusively in support of the Senate’s actions; out of a batch of 10,000 documents, a reporter found only two or three emails asking lawmakers to call it off.

Lawmakers were flooded with emails demanding they hire Jovan Hutton Pulitzer and other conspiracy theorists to do the audit. The requests came not only from across Arizona but also from states from Massachusetts to Oklahoma. Concerned citizens in Poland and Australia added their pleas to the chorus of emails, many of which had a form-letter feel.

The people behind these emails expressed confidence in the statements of conspiracy-minded data crunchers and appeared to have a blind hatred for local election officials. Many legislators seemed to pander to the writers.

The tone ranged from polite — "Respectfully request the Senate use Col. Phil Waldron's firm along with Jovan Pulitzer auditing the ballots," wrote Gary Nunns, who did not identify if he was an Arizona resident — to outright demands: "A forensic audit by Jovan Hutton Pulitzer is what we the people want and need period," Joe Gomes wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen.

Senate President Karen Fann often responded with a simple thank you message. To others, she gave brief updates about efforts to move the audit forward.

— Robert Anglen, Mary Jo Pitzl, Ray Stern, Ryan Randazzo, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

6:45 p.m., Sept. 9: Draft reports expected by middle of next week

Senate President Karen Fann confirmed Thursday that the full draft report of the audit the Senate commissioned earlier this year should arrive at the Senate by the middle of next week.

The long-anticipated draft was first expected to arrive in late August, but its completion was delayed by a COVID-19 outbreak among three of the Cyber Ninja auditors.

The draft report will be examined by the Senate’s nine-person legal review team, which will review it for “clarity, accuracy, proof and documentation of any findings,” Fann has said.

In addition, the legal review team is expecting reports on two other audit-related checks it ordered, according to Randy Pullen, the audit's spokesperson and one of its chief fundraisers. They are the machine count of the number of ballots cast in the election, and a review of the signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes.

The final reports will be delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee and made public, although it is unclear how much time it will take to move from draft form to the final version.

The review team consists of Fann; Judiciary Chairman Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert; Senate legal counsel Greg Jernigan; contract Senate attorneys Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile of Statecraft; Garth Kamp, the Senate’s senior policy adviser; audit liaison Ken Bennett, and audit spokesman Randy Pullen. Doug Logan, CEO of the Cyber Ninjas, is also on the team to provide answers and context.

A special committee of the Senate Government Committee also will be required to review the final reports. The committee can recommend any statutory changes that might be needed in the wake of the audit and can request a special session of the Legislature to deal with any proposed bills.

The committee has not yet been formed because the law that authorized it doesn’t take effect until Sept. 29. When it is named, it will have to act fast: By law, its authority lapses on Dec. 31.

— Mary Jo Pitzl

4 p.m., Sept. 6: U.S. Senate candidate helped pay for audit security

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Jim Lamon has emerged as a key behind-the-scenes player in the state Senate's long-running ballot review, from helping bankroll security to directing Ken Bennett to take a position as a spokesperson for the effort.

Lamon's involvement adds to an already lengthy list of conservative causes he has helped underwrite during his brief candidacy.

The solar company executive has said he has paid for security during the ballot inspections and directed Bennett to pause the work he was doing with Lamon to recruit Republican voters so he could help with the partisan election review.

Lamon’s partial name appeared in a text message released this week by the Republican-controlled state Senate related to its review of the 2020 election, an exercise Lamon has supported even before it began in earnest earlier this year.

On the campaign trail, as he met with GOP voters at pancake breakfasts and political meet-and-greets, Lamon has taken credit for helping inspire the ballot review. In one appearance, he said he “started pressuring” Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, to pursue the efforts when legal efforts by electors — including him — to overturn the election came up short.

— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

9 a.m., Sept. 6: Trump adviser helps funnel money to audit

A prominent Republican attorney who advised President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election helped set up an escrow account to funnel money to companies working on the Arizona election audit.

Cleta Mitchell's role came to light as The Arizona Republic combed through documents the state Senate released after a court order. The documents provide previously unknown details on payments to companies and people participating in audit work and link the audit even closer to Trump.

Mitchell, who gained national attention for advising Trump during his January call to Georgia election officials in which he asked them to find votes in his favor, arranged for $1 million to be sent from the escrow account in late July to three subcontractors working under Cyber Ninjas, the Senate's lead contractor.

This adds to the millions of dollars in outside funding that has paid for the months-long partisan review of Maricopa County's ballots and voting machines. Republican leaders in the Senate ordered the unusual review, which has been funded mainly by "Stop the Steal" advocates and Trump allies.

— Jen Fifield and Stacey Barchenger

5 p.m., Sept. 5: Taxpayers pick up $425K in audit costs, with more coming

Taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $425,000 for the costs of the audit of the 2020 election results Senate Republicans are conducting, with thousands of dollars more in bills yet to come, state records show.

The largest expense is for $223,000 in legal fees paid through July, followed by $68,100 for security costs at the state fairgrounds in May.

Those security costs were contracted by the Guardian Defense Fund, a dark-money nonprofit started in February to "fight back" against allegations about the involvement of three Arizona Republican politicians in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Senate President Karen Fann, who authorized the audit, acknowledged overall costs are climbing. But she said a lot of that is due to Maricopa County's refusal to cooperate with the audit, resulting in legal fees, unexpected security costs and rental charges.

— Mary Jo Pitzl

12:30 p.m., Sept. 5: State Senate hires conspiracy theorist for ballot review

The Arizona Senate has hired an election conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist to conduct its review of voter signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes in Maricopa County.

Cyber Ninjas, the Senate's lead audit contractor, hired the same man to review images of all 2.1 million ballots cast in the 2020 election.

Shiva Ayyadurai, or "Dr. Shiva" as he is known to far-right adherents, was tapped for both reviews in the waning weeks of the audit process, records show. However, he had participated in discussions with Arizona Republicans about challenging the state's election results as far back as November.

The Arizona Republic found one of Ayyadurai's contracts among thousands of records the Senate released in response to a court order.

— Robert Anglen and Jen Fifield

7 p.m. Sept. 2: Audit workers get paid ... finally

One of the firms working on the audit left the project in May, but a payment dispute lingered for months, documents released by the state Senate show.

Wake Technologies apparently didn’t pay its subcontractors until it struck an agreement in late July with Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor on the audit, and the dozens of people Wake had hired.

As of Aug. 16, records show, 21 subcontractors were mailed checks totaling $166,550. This was labeled as “round one” of payments; in all, Wake was responsible for 41 contractors who were paid hourly rates ranging from $50 to $125.

Wake’s role was to recount the 2.1 million ballots cast in the November 2020 election in Maricopa County. The firm worked at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum from early April until May 14, when the audit’s contract for the state fairgrounds property lapsed.

It is unclear from the settlement agreement what caused the payment delay. But late Thursday, audit spokesman Randy Pullen said Cyber Ninjas had fulfilled its contractual obligation to Wake.

- Mary Jo Pitzl and Jen Fifield

5 p.m., Sept. 1: 'At least 2 weeks' until a final audit report is ready

As the review of the Maricopa County election moves into its fifth month — at its start, Senate officials said the initial count would take just 30 days — one big remaining unknown is when will the public see the findings.

At a court status conference over public records Wednesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp asked Kory Langhofer, the attorney for the Arizona Senate, that burning question. When would the Cyber Ninja's preliminary report on the audit go to the Senate, Kemp wanted to know, and would the Senate seek to protect that from public disclosure as it has thousands of other records?

Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, announced last week that the preliminary report was delayed because Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and two other members of his team contracted serious cases of COVID-19. The Senate still hasn't received that document, Langhofer said.

Langhofer said the preliminary report is expected to come in three volumes, and one volume is not yet written. He said it will be "at least two weeks" before a final report is produced.

Kemp engaged in some foreshadowing in the courtroom, anticipating a fight over the documents that the Senate said are not subject to release.

"I have a feeling there will be some substantial disagreements over whether documents are privileged or not," the judge said.

— Ryan Randazzo