Everyone thought the Cyber Ninjas were in it for the money.
The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate picked the Florida-based company to run the sham recount of votes in Maricopa County earlier this year, despite their having zero experience running election audits.
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The company’s efforts were so amateurish that even the Republican-led Maricopa Board of Supervisors labeled them a bunch of “grifters and con artists.”
But it turns out that even though a variety of conspiracy-loving groups raised almost $6 million to fund the audit, that money hasn’t made its way to the Cyber Ninjas.
This week the company’s CEO Doug Logan said that rather than making him rich, the sham Maricopa County recount left him $2 million in debt.
That’s almost one dollar of debt for every one of the 2.1 million ballots that the Cyber Ninjas recounted during the bogus audit that was conducted over the space of five months earlier this year.
Logan made the claim to Nick Moseder, a long-time election truther who has been spreading disinformation about vote-rigging and other baseless election conspiracies for months on his social media channels, including a show he hosted on YouTube before he was banned from the platform.
Moseder, on his Telegram channel, recounted a conversation he had recently with Logan, claiming that the Cyber Ninjas CEO has been left in deep financial trouble as a result of the Arizona recount.
“While many people got VERY RICH off of the AZ audit, Doug Logan is over 2 million dollars in debt, with no other means of income,” Moseder wrote. “I believe he was anticipating more audits to make up for his losses and kept being reassured, ‘don’t worry about the money, America has your back.’”
Moseder also revealed that Logan’s wife gave birth to the couple’s 12th child recently.
“I personally think it’s a tragedy that Doug Logan sacrificed months with his pregnant wife and 11 kids (now 12) to put his business and reputation on the line,” Moseder wrote. “All of that work, risk, and sacrifice to have come out the other side being called a traitor, and to be 2.1 million dollars in debt, with a business whose reputation will forever be branded ‘right-wing conspiracy company.’”
The news of Logan’s claimed financial ruin will come as a surprise to many, given that back in July, Logan himself issued a press release listing the donors who collectively have coughed up $5.7 million to fund the charade.
Recently released Senate account records show that the recount cost $9 million before the cost of Cyber Ninjas’ involvement is taken into account.
From the beginning, Logan and his company were widely ridiculed and mocked for indulging conspiracy theories and for the shambolic way the recount was conducted.
At the same time, however, Trump supporters were willing to donate large amounts of cash to fund what they believed was a process that would somehow overturn the 2020 election results—though that was never legally possible.
In the end, the Cyber Ninjas report found that President Joe Biden won Maricopa county by more votes than the official count said—and it wasn’t long before Cyber Ninjas and Logan were the ones being attacked with the CEO claiming he was inundated with messages from Trump supporters blasting him for “not doing enough” to overturn the election.
The audit was funded initially by $150,000 from the Arizona Senate, which also covered the costs of renting the venue for the recount, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, and the security required to protect the ballots around the clock.
But the vast majority of the funding came from right-wing figures who had embraced the Big Lie and conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen.
People like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, and pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood were all involved, either giving money towards the recount or helping get members of the public to donate to the fundraising effort.
Logan’s revelation that he has been left in millions of dollars worth of debt will likely raise questions about where all that money has gone.
But it seems that some people aren’t done donating money to this cause. Moseder reported that many people had contacted him about where they could donate money to help Logan.
Logan reportedly told Moseder that people should donate to the fundraising campaign established by Christina Bobb, the One America News reporter who was given unfettered access to the recount when reporters from other outlets were barred.
“Christina Bobb’s fund would be the best one to use since the other organizations have mostly moved on to other things, or simply have not been willing to be transparent,” Logan told Moseder.
Logan did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment on his financial situation but an automatic email response said he was currently “out of the office celebrating the birth of my latest daughter.”
Logan’s personal financial situation has also been in the news lately. Last week the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that on Jan 25, Logan cleared a 30-year mortgage on his $455,000 house, less than four years after taking out the loan. The report also highlighted that this was the same date that his company’s $100,000 emergency pandemic relief loan was forgiven by the government.
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