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Desperate Arizona quest to uncover a conspiracy continues Monday when Rep. Mark Finchem convenes a “hearing” on election fraud in the 2020 state election.
This time he delves into the details of a 13 month old email.
An email from an anonymous guy whose claims have already been investigated and dismissed.
I told you that desperation had set in.
Finchem held a “hearing” in 2020 with no evidence
Finchem is one of the loudest stop-the-stealers in the state, an Oro Valley Republican hoping to howl into the secretary of state’s office to oversee elections in one of the country’s major swing states.
It was Finchem who hosted a one-day “hearing” in November 2020 that enabled Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani to indulge the public with various conspiracy theories about the many ways in which the Arizona election was stolen. Giuliani spent all day presenting “knowledgeable” witnesses, none of whom provided actual evidence of fraud.
But Finchem was not discouraged.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a skirmish,” he said at the end of that meeting on November 30th. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Because if Satan wants to extinguish a light, he will stop at nothing. So be on your guard, put on the full armor of God and be ready to fight. “
Five weeks later, Finchem was in Washington, DC for the January 6 rally where Trump supporters broke into the Capitol in hopes of halting election results certification.
He continues his efforts to undermine voter confidence
Since then, he has been running around the country demanding the decertification of the election based on an election test in Maricopa County that found no evidence of widespread fraud. Even the reviewers acknowledge that there may be explanations for the potential problems they identified.
Yet Finchem continues his quest to undermine voter confidence in elections (and just happened to fuel his own campaign to climb the political food chain).
In a completely shocking move that no one could foresee, Trump backed him in the foreign minister’s race. But even with that confirmation, polls show Finchem no advantage over its main Republican rival, Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita. MP Shawnna Bolick also runs in the Republican primary.
Now he’s building on the fantasy that there was a conspiracy underway in last year’s election.
Namely: Pima County fraud.
Still no evidence of those 35,000 ballots
Finchem is holding a one-day “hearing” Monday on a 13-month-old email from an anonymous man describing a Pima County Democratic Party plan to inject 35,000 false votes into the system. (Note the use of the quotation marks around the word “hear”. This is because Finchem does not have the authority to actually do anything. Thank God.)
The Attorney General’s electoral integrity unit has already investigated the claim but has found no evidence. Nobody else has anyone.
Still, during a Trump rally in Des Moines on October 9, Finchem announced that 35,000 fake votes had been found.
“We had a whistleblower emailing not just the DOJ but every single lawmaker saying there are 34,000 or 35,000 fictitious voters and they have been put into the system and we never will find, “he told the rally Iowans. “Well, we think we found her.”
This was a message for the AG office that Finchem sent a letter on October 14th asking him to hand over “the evidence you claim to have”.
Not a word about whether Finchem reacted. (Neither he nor the AG office responded to requests for comments.)
But Finchem’s word was apparently enough for Trump, who on November 23 cited “the recent revelation of 35,000 fictitious votes in Pima County” as further evidence that the Arizona election should be overturned.
Expect a “fertile investigation” … of sour grapes
Now, two months later, there is Finchem’s “hearing”.
Be on the lookout for a bunch of headlights from the likes of Shiva Ayyadurai, whose painfully uninformed analysis of the early pictures of the ballot envelopes – and his reaction to Maricopa County’s exposure of its results – was one of the ridiculous moments in the Maricopa County’s audit.
Also, watch out for lots of passionate speeches about stolen elections. After all, fires must be stoked constantly if they are to stay hot. And until election day 2022.
“Over the past 12 months,” the Finchem press release announcing Monday’s “hearing” said, “some members of the legislature and resources of the various electoral integrity organizations have had a calm but fruitful investigation into the substance and reliability of the Accusation carried out. ”
I suspect the fruit of this “hearing” … as well as last year’s “hearing”, as well as this year’s test … will be lemons. Or maybe sour grapes.
It’s actually like Finchem said a year ago: “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
He was right. We are not.
You can reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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