Big Banks Enslave Humanity; Ashli Babbitt Was Murdered on January 6; Bill Gates Buying Up America Farmland

Ashli Babbitt Was Murdered Under the Color of Authority on January 6: Use-of-Force Expert

By Joseph M. Hanneman
July 25, 2022 Updated: July 25, 2022

Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran shot outside the U.S. Capitol Speaker’s Lobby by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021, was “murdered … under the color of authority,” a use-of-force expert concludes after reviewing video footage of the incident.

Just prior to 2:45 p.m. on January 6, Ashli Babbitt began climbing through the side window leading into the Speaker’s Lobby and was shot in the left anterior shoulder by Byrd. She was pronounced dead a half-hour later at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

Stan Kephart, who has testified in court more than 350 times as an expert witness on policing issues, reviewed the shooting in the new Epoch TV documentary, “The Real Story of Jan. 6.” The film is streaming on Epoch TV.

Kephart is a 42-year law enforcement veteran and former director of security for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. He has testified on topics including excessive force, police discipline, officer safety, and crowd control.

“My conclusion … based on what I saw and observed in the video clips is that Ashli Babbitt was murdered,” Kephart said.

“She was shot and killed under color of authority by an officer who violated not only the law but his oath and committed an arrestable offense,” Kephart said.

Epoch Times Photo
Police use-of-force expert Stan Kephart is interviewed for the Epoch TV documentary, “The Real Story of Jan. 6” on June 2, 2022. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times)

Kephart said he saw nothing in the video evidence to indicate Byrd should have felt his life was in danger or that he was at risk of serious harm from the 5-foot 2-inch, 110-pound San Diego woman wrapped in a Trump flag.

“In order for lethal force to be authorized, the officer has to be able to articulate that he or she was in fear of losing his life, was about to be killed, or grievously injured,” Kephart said in the documentary. “There is nothing I saw in that film that would indicate that was possible or probable from what unfolded.”

Byrd’s attorney, Mark Schamel, in a statement to The Epoch Times called Kephart’s conclusion “unsupported and erroneous,” saying the Lieutenant was justified in the use of force.

“When Ms. Babbitt entered through the broken window and entered the inner protected area, wearing a backpack and refusing the verbal commands of multiple armed federal officers with weapons drawn, the threat she posed was clear and Lt. Byrd, as the first officer in the final line of defense, was absolutely justified in his use of force.”

Epoch Times Photo
The exact moment Lt. Michael Byrd fires on unarmed Ashli Babbitt, killing her. Byrd was cleared despite never doing a formal Internal Affairs interview about the shooting. (Jayden X/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Aaron Babbitt, Ashli’s husband, said Kephart reached the same conclusion as other law enforcement experts, including former New York City police commissioners Bernard Kerik and Ray Kelly.

“I loved hearing that from him. He’s obviously well-versed in the use of force,” Babbitt told The Epoch Times, referring to Kephart. “He’s clearly a very smart man who has been in that business for a long time. He should be listened to.”

Epoch Times Photo
Ashli Babbitt with Bella, one of her treasured dogs, at home in San Diego. (Courtesy of Aaron Babbitt)

Babbitt disputed Schamel’s claim that his wife “refused” verbal commands from Byrd or anyone else. He questioned why Byrd was wearing a COVID face covering if he hoped to be heard shouting instructions.

“Witness testimony I’ve read, police included, said they heard no warning,” Babbitt said, adding that if they thought the situation was serious enough for deadly force, “the mask should probably come off your face. Complete disregard for human life and not following the use-of-force continuum.”

Video shot by political activist John “Jayden X” Sullivan through the Speaker’s Lobby windows shows Byrd had his finger on the trigger of his Glock pistol before Babbitt ever appeared in the window. He then removed his finger from the trigger for a short time before advancing on the open window and firing as Babbitt started to lean through.

Babbitt’s killing still hangs like a dark cloud over January 6. Questions remain about her death, even after the June 2022 release of a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report that concluded there was insufficient evidence that Byrd used excessive force when he shot the unarmed Babbitt as she attempted to climb through a broken window.

Kephart said Byrd should have written a firearms discharge report immediately after the shooting. Byrd declined to give a statement to Internal Affairs detectives and was never formally interviewed before eventually being cleared of wrongdoing.

According to a June 2022 DOJ report, Byrd agreed to a “voluntary debrief and walk-through of the scene” with his attorney in late January 2021, in which he stated if the “mob of rioters” outside the Speaker’s Lobby gained entry, “it wasn’t going to go well.”

‘I Had No Clue’

In a 2021 interview with Lester Holt on NBC, Byrd said he could not see into the Speaker’s Lobby hallway through the glass, did not know if the person climbing into the window was male or female, and could not tell if the person had anything in their hands.

“It’s impossible for me to see what’s on the other side because we had created such a barricade, and it was high enough that the visibility was impossible,” Byrd said. He said he did not know there were three Capitol Police officers standing with their backs to the entry doors.

Epoch Times Photo
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was in command of police in the U.S. House chamber on Jan. 6, 2021. (Judicial Watch)

Byrd said police “were essentially trapped” in the lobby, and “there was nowhere to retreat” because entrances were barricaded. “It sounded like hundreds of people outside of that door,” he said. Byrd said he repeatedly shouted for people to get back—”I was yelling at the top of my lungs”—but added it was possible that could not be heard in the hallway.

When Holt asked Byrd if he knew whom he shot, Byrd replied: “I had no clue. I didn’t even know it was a female until hours way later, sometime later on that night.” He said he only found out later that Babbitt had no weapon. “There was no way to know that at that time,” he said. “I could not fully see her hands or what was in the backpack or what the intentions of…”

“I know based on my training and my policy, what I did was appropriate,” Byrd said.

Kephart said the shooting should have been evaluated using a litmus test from the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor: whether force was ever needed and appropriate in the situation, the extent of the injury, and “whether the force was applied in a good-faith manner to maintain and restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically.”

The DOJ report on the shooting was released in June by Judicial Watch, which sued the DOJ for January 6 case records.

“After a thorough review of the facts and circumstances in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lt. Byrd violated Ms. McEntee’s (sic) civil rights by willfully using more force than was reasonably necessary, or was not acting in self-defense or the defense of others,” reads the undated 14-page document. The report referred to Babbitt by her previous married name. She married Aaron Babbitt in 2019.

Kephart said the standard set by the Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor does not refer to “willfully” using more force than necessary. “…They inserted willfully above knowingly, which is at best contradictory, and worst, disingenuous,” Kephart told The Epoch Times in an email.

Although Byrd refused to give a formal statement to investigators, the DOJ concluded that his apparent belief that Babbitt posed an imminent, potentially deadly threat was “reasonable.”

Epoch Times Photo
Ashli Babbitt (upper right) begins to fall back after being shot by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021. (Sam Montoya/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

About five hours after the shooting, Byrd met with Internal Affairs detectives from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, which investigated the shooting on behalf of the U.S. Capitol Police. He said he wanted to consult an attorney first. Byrd never made a formal statement to Internal Affairs investigators.

In his statement to The Epoch Times, Schamel, Byrd’s attorney, said “actual experts who train federal agents and officers in the use of force have described Lt. Byrd’s conduct as exemplary.”

Investigative Reports

A Metropolitan Police Department Internal Affairs investigator who reviewed video footage from Capitol security cameras from just before Babbitt was shot reported, “Ms. Babbitt does not appear to be carrying anything in her hands,” according to an internal police report released by Judicial Watch.

One U.S. Capitol Police sergeant who was in the Speaker’s Lobby when Babbitt was shot told Internal Affairs investigators at the time of the shooting “there was a lot of screaming” and “I heard somebody screaming, ‘Get back, get back,’ ” an Internal Affairs report said.

A Capitol Police officer who was in the Speaker’s Lobby with Byrd said before Babbitt appeared in the window, various officers were shouting for the crowd to get back. After Byrd fired his weapon, the officer said, Byrd was “shaky” and “teary eyed.”

“You know, you can just tell, like, I ain’t gonna say when somebody regrets to do something, when somebody just is just nervous, you know, they’ll rub their head, their (sic) pace back and forth,” the officer told an Internal Affairs agent.

One of the three officers stationed on the outside of the Speaker’s Lobby doors where Ashli Babbitt and other protesters were gathered told an investigator “he did not recall hearing any verbal commands being given from inside the Speaker’s Lobby,” according to a Jan. 6 police report.

One of the other two officers stationed outside the doors and facing the angry crowd was asked if he heard anyone inside the Speaker’s Lobby saying anything. “No, sir,” he replied. When asked if he considered using his firearm on rioters, he said: “So, you’re accountable for every round in, in your service weapon, obviously, you can’t shoot into an empty crowd. That’s so wrong.”

The third officer stationed at the doors also told investigators he didn’t hear any communications from police inside the Speaker’s Lobby, according to a Jan. 6, 2021, Internal Affairs report.

Epoch Times Photo
Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd had his Glock pistol drawn and pointed in the direction of U.S. Rep Troy Nehls (R-Texas) on January 6, 2021. Photo illustration courtesy of Aaron Babbitt)

A Metropolitan Police Department Internal Affairs Division summary from Babbitt’s Jan. 7 autopsy said the medical examiner determined “the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the left anterior shoulder and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.”

Kephart said he was shocked at a photograph from the House floor earlier on January 6 showing Byrd with his gun drawn and aimed in the direction of Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) and two other men.

“This man [Byrd] should be directed to submit to a fitness-for-duty examination immediately by his chief of police,” Kephart said. “Based on this photo alone he is not qualified to possess a firearm. He is clearly demonstrating a conscious disregard for where he is. His firearm should be at a ‘low ready’ position until target acquisition.

“Any qualified firearms instructor would be horrified at this photo in view of what transpired after the picture was taken, where he shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, disregarding officers in the backdrop, and did not advance and assess the shot or provide first aid and take control of the crime scene—all of which he has been taught, trained, and certified to do.”

Nehls has spoken repeatedly of his belief that the shooting was murder. Nehls served as sheriff of Fort Bend County, Texas, from 2012 until 2020. “The video was quite clear,” Nehls told Newsmax in 2021. “It was murder.”

Joseph M. Hanneman

Joseph M. Hanneman  is a reporter for The Epoch Times with a focus on the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol incursion and its aftermath; and general news in the State of Wisconsin. His work over a nearly 40-year career has appeared in Catholic World Report, the Racine Journal Times, the Wisconsin State Journal and the Chicago Tribune. Reach him at: joseph.hanneman@epochtimes.us


This Is Why Bill Gates Wants to Reset the Food System

BY JOSEPH MERCOLA JULY 24, 2022

It’s all part of the script of The Great Reset – just look at who invested a half-billion dollars into this major online grocery retailer as government prepares to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • In early June 2022, the government of The Netherlands announced it would cut the size of livestock herds in the country by 30% to meet European Union nitrogen and ammonia pollution rules
  • According to Dutch Parliament member Thierry Baudet, the government is following the script of The Great Reset, which requires weakening the country, making it more dependent on food imports, and diluting nationalism by taking in more immigrants. To make room for immigrant housing, they need to take land from the farmers
  • The newly assigned Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy, Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, is married to Piet van der Wal, who together with his brother are heavily invested in the major online grocery retailer Picnic. In September 2021, Bill Gates invested an estimated half-billion dollars into Picnic, thereby becoming one of its lead investors. Gates’ involvement has raised questions about government corruption
  • At the same time the Dutch government is preparing to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production, Gates is gobbling up farmland back home. Despite land prices being at a record high, Gates purchased a 2,100-acre potato farm in North Dakota in June 2022, bringing the total land share held by the Gates’ Red River Trust above 270,000 acres
  • Gates claims he intends to lease the farmland to farmers. Viewed from the perspective of The Great Reset, it would then appear Gates may be engaged in the same kind of wealth-shift scheme as BlackRock and other investment groups that are buying up single-family homes and turning them into rentals. The end goal is to eliminate all private ownership and turn the population into serfs

In early June 2022, the government of The Netherlands announced it would cut the size of livestock herds in the country by 30% to meet European Union nitrogen and ammonia pollution rules.1,2 As a result of this “green” policy, many farmers will be driven out of business3 and they have gathered in protest across the country.

This is important because many may not realize that even though The Netherlands is a small country, it’s the second-largest exporter of agriculture in the world, after the United States.4 As with current energy shortages, the forced reductions in farming and food production are said to be an “unavoidable” part of the Green Agenda to improve air, soil and water quality.5

In a public statement about the new emissions targets, the Dutch government even admitted that “The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business.”6 Those who do continue will have to come up with creative solutions to meet the new emissions restrictions.

A Clear Case of Corruption?

The restrictions on nitrogen for livestock farmers have befuddled many. Why would government restrict farming at a time when food shortages and famine loom on the horizon worldwide? Some claim to have discovered conflicts of interest within the Dutch government that can help explain this irrational move.7

The newly assigned Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy (who created the nitrogen regulations and is responsible for overseeing the cuts to farming), Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, is married to Piet van der Wal, who together with his brother, Bouke van der Wal, own a massive supermarket chain called Boni.

As noted by The Conservative Treehouse,8 “when Dutch farmers sell product to Boni they are directly funding the wealth of the government minister who seeks to destroy their livelihoods.”

The van der Wal family is also heavily invested in a major online grocery retailer called Picnic. Picnic buys food at wholesale prices directly from Boni, which minimizes its operational costs. Picnic basically functions as a home delivery service for Boni.

In September 2021, Bill Gates entered the Dutch enterprise. He invested an estimated half-billion dollars into Picnic, thereby becoming one of its lead investors.9 Not surprisingly, Picnic focuses on selling the fake “food” that Gates is invested in and promotes, imitation beef in particular.

The CEO of Picnic, Michiel Muller, a Dutch climate change activist, has also publicly vowed to “change the entire food system” to be in line with sustainable goals,10 which falls right in line with Gates’ agenda.

The strong recommendation to replace beef with fake meat was made in Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need,” released in February 2021.11 In an interview with MIT Technology Review, he also suggested that people could learn to like fake meat and, if resistance continues, regulations may be needed to force the switch.12

According to The Countersignal,13 “many participating in the ongoing farmers’ protests in Holland have openly stated they believe Gates may be partly responsible for pushing additional climate laws.” Curiously, July 10, 2022, a large Picnic delivery facility in Almelo, Holland, burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.14,15,16

Bill Gates - synthetic beef

Why Get Rid of Farmers Amid Rising Food Insecurity?

The attempt to rid The Netherlands of livestock farmers really only makes sense if seen from the globalists’ point of view, with an eye on The Great Reset, the Green New Deal, Agenda 2030 and related Sustainable Development Goals.

Indeed, according to Dutch Parliament member Thierry Baudet (video above), that’s really what the nitrogen restrictions are all about. The Dutch government is following the script of The Great Reset, he says, which requires weakening the country, making it less independent and more dependent on food imports.

The Great Reset script also calls for diluting nationalism and weakening borders by taking in more immigrants, and to make room for immigrant housing, they need to take land from the farmers. So, the new nitrogen rules are basically a precursor to a land grab. They intend to put farmers out of business so they can take their land and stack it full of low-income, government-assistance apartment buildings.

Aside from that, farmers also pose a threat to the technocratic elitists because they don’t need to rely on government for basics such as food and shelter, and they can allow those who buy their food to maintain their independence as well.

The globalists’ plan is to eliminate access to as much real food as possible, and replace natural foods with patented foodstuffs so that the population becomes entirely dependent on them for survival. At that point, they are easily controlled. Eliminating independent food producers — farmers — is therefore a key to the globalist cabal’s eventual success.

Gates Gobbles Up Farmland While Pushing Fake Foods

At the same time the Dutch government is preparing to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production — likely with Gates’ blessing, if not due to his influence — Gates is gobbling up farmland back home.

Despite land prices being at a record-high, Gates purchased a 2,100-acre potato farm in North Dakota in June 2022, bringing the total land share held by the Gates’ Red River Trust above 270,000 acres — up from about 242,000 acres in mid-September 2021.

The following map, from AgWeb,17 shows the distribution of his land holdings prior to his North Dakota acquisition. As you can see, the vast majority is farmland.

the Gateses landholdings by state

Gates Plan: Turn Farmers Into Modern Serfs

However, as reported by AgWeb at the end of June 2022, Gates didn’t get a warm welcome:18

“North Dakota hosts ‘corporate farming laws’ that barres [sic] corporations and limited liability companies from owning and leasing farms and ranches. With the Gates’s new $13.5 million farmland purchase, North Dakotans — including the attorney general — are concerned the sale violates the state’s law. The North Dakota attorney general’s office sent a letter to the Red River Trust on Tuesday, alerting the trustee of the North Dakota land law.

‘Our office needs to confirm how your company uses this land and whether this use meets any of the statutory exceptions, such as the business purpose exception,’ wrote Drew Wrigley, North Dakota attorney general.”

MoneyWise19 followed up on the story, reporting that by July 5, 2022, Gates had secured legal approval for his farm purchase — a decision that has raised the ire of many North Dakotans who don’t believe Gates has good intentions.

According to MoneyWise, “The anti-corporate farming law does allow individual trusts to own farmland if it is leased to farmers — and that’s what Gates’ firm plans to do.” Viewed from the perspective of The Great Reset, it appears Gates may be engaged in the same kind of subversive wealth-shift scheme as BlackRock and other investment groups that are buying up single-family homes.

They buy them, often sight-unseen and at above-market prices, with the intent of turning them into rentals. This too is part and parcel of The Great Reset and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The intent is to eliminate all private ownership and turn the population into modern serfs. “Serf” is a term that describes people who are required to work for the “lord” who owns the land they live on, or who are otherwise underpaid, overworked or exploited in some way.

That’ll be all of us, one day, if the world doesn’t wake up and refuse to go along with the globalist cabal’s Great Reset plans. The plight of the Dutch farmers is just the beginning.

Originally published July 22, 2022 on Mercola.com

Sources and References

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.


What if we told you our planet’s greatest hope might be living right beneath our feet?

Your body is your temple and it is how we live in  this world. Perhaps the process food plants were destroyed for a reason. Watch the Short video below and see why.

 

Today, be the energy of love that surrounds all living things, starting with yourself.

They Want Us Divided, but United We are Unstoppable

This exciting, crazy and seemingly insane world is unfolding right before our very eyes. This had to happen to expose all the corruption in the world and to build a new world of love, wisdom, compassion and helping our fellow man.

As the power of the many is unleashed, there will be a liberation the world has never seen.   It starts individually, by  simply become keenly and consciously aware of Infinite Intelligence, our Source, God by many names,  is available to all. You will be begin to discover  the limitless and creative power  of love that harmonizes our  visions, hopes, dreams and desires. Together we can  create a new world  in order to achieve a greater equality, justice, freedom and peace.

We are  in a psychological war and have been for a long time, but now humanity is waking up. It needs to happen in order to secure real freedom; and most urgently, to secure a viable future for humanity.  It is not only our destiny, but our duty.

We all need to urge people to critically think about what is happening around them, in our schools, our local governments, the medical community, the censorship and the appointed leaders of countries all over the world.   The more we wake, and realize the  higher power, the higher  the vibration.  As an example Ottawa Attorney urge the police to side with the people and not the government. It is happen around the world.


Dr. Charles Hoffe reveals the horrors he has witnessed in his patients who have had the vaccine and how he has been threatened and harassed because he is not going with the mainstream narrative.


Bill Gates confirms “Omicron is a type of vaccine” in the video below.

It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world’s systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family’s history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world’s food supply is to reduce the world’s population by a significant amount in the process.  Source Ethan A. Huff Natural News March 1, 2012

Interesting to learn that Trudeau’s foundation owns 40% of Acuitas Therapeutics which makes mechanic lipids for Pfizer. Dr. Robert Malone discusses this conflict of interest as long investors start dumping Pfizer/Moderna stocks ahead of the actual vaccine safety data leaking out. Looks like racketeering and insider trading happening.

This backs up another video when Chris sky said that all the arrests are BS. They arrest you then they drive you 20 minutes out of Ottawa and you can go back to the protest. There are no charges all fake smoke and mirrors. Listen to this guy’s 1st hand interactions with law enforcement in Ottawa.

They are arresting people and dropping them in the middle of nowhere because what they are doing is illegal. If they were to process and detain them , it will be war crimes.

White Hats are watching this, Castro and all the people following his illegal orders are being caught in a massive sting operations

He’s on point with his message. Don’t be afraid of frozen bank accounts. Continue to fight, resist and unite as one collective.

Event 201 Launched, Arizona Senate Hears of Multiple Inconsistencies Found by Election Audit and more

EVENT 201: COVID-19 WAS LAUNCHED ONE MONTH AFTER THE JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER AND BILL GATES HOSTED AN ‘INVITATION ONLY’ GLOBAL PANDEMIC EXERCISE

Selected moments from the October 18th Event 201 Exercise (Length: ~12 minutes)

On October 18, 2019 by invitation-only, nearly 130 people attended the exercise known as Event 201. The event was a livestreams available to everyone. Video coverage is available here.

The Event 201 pandemic exercise demonstrated a number of what they believed was important gaps in pandemic preparedness as well as some of the elements of the solutions between the public and private sectors that will be needed to fill them. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jointly propose these recommendations.

Was this their plan to Control The Whole World? Please do your own research and double check everything. Accept nothing as the truth and realize the truth is hard to find because much has been censored . Please do your own research and double-check everything present to you. That is the only way to truly wake up and become an independent thinker”.

201 Event player  Avril Haines

Avril Haines is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University; a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service; and a principal at West Exec Advisors.

During the last administration, Dr. Haines served as Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. She also served as the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council.

Dr. Haines received her bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. She serves on a number of boards and advisory groups, including the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Bio Advisory Group, the Board of Trustees for the Vodafone Foundation, and the Refugees International Advisory

Event Player Haines is now the Director of National Intelligence in the Biden Administration 

Avril Danica Haines (born August 27, 1969) is an American lawyer and senior government official who currently serves as the Director of National Intelligence in the Biden administration. She is the first woman to serve in this role. Haines previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Obama administration; the first woman to hold either position. Prior to her appointment to the CIA, she served as Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs in the Office of White House Counsel.


The World is not as it seems, the physical and metaphysical worlds are inseparable 

Arizona Senate Hears of Multiple Inconsistencies Found by Election Audit
Arizona attorney general says his office will review findings
September 24, 2021 Updated: September 27, 2021

his article was updated with the findings presented during the Arizona Senate’s hearing and the auditors’ report provided to the Arizona Senate.

Arizona lawmakers were told on Friday during a hearing on an audit conducted in the state’s most populous county of inconsistencies uncovered during a forensic audit into the 2020 election.

The Maricopa County audit was commissioned by Republicans in the Arizona Senate.

Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, issued a letter on the same day to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recommending further investigation following the audit’s findings. In the letter, she raised concerns over signature verification on mail-in ballots, the accuracy of voter rolls, the securing of election systems, and the record-keeping of evidence related to the elections.

“I am therefore forwarding the reports for your office’s consideration and, if you find it appropriate, further investigation as part of your ongoing oversight of these issues,” Fann told Brnovich in the letter.

Brnovich, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, said in a statement, “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.”

His office said that its Election Integrity Unit “will thoroughly review the Senate’s information and evidence. Specific allegations cannot be commented on until the review it complete, the office added.

Fann said Friday at the hearing that the audit had faced unnecessary obstruction from Maricopa County officials, who went to court in a bid to try to block the audit and subpoenas from the state Senate. While the forensic audit did not uncover a significant difference in the total vote tallies—the difference was only hundreds in the final report— evidence was uncovered of numerous other anomalies, including statutes being broken and chain of custody not being followed, Fann added.

Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based company hired by the state Senate to conduct the audit, said its review involved over 1,500 people and a total of over 100,000 hours. While the company said it only found in the recount a vote discrepancy of 994 in the presidential race and 1,167 in a U.S. Senate race, the report highlighted potential issues with a combined total of 53,305 ballots.

Maricopa County on Friday issued a series of statements on its Twitter page in response to findings laid out in a purported draft audit report of Cyber Ninja’s forensic audit that had been released ahead of the Senate audit hearing.

The draft audit report’s figures did not entirely correlate with that of Cyber Ninja’s final report. Fann said Friday at the hearing, “As you know somebody leaked one of the draft reports out over the last 24-48 hours. It was a draft report, so I can tell you that what’s in that is not entirely what’s in the final report.” However, some key allegations in the draft report regarding ballots did match that of the final report.

Karen Fann
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann talks to reporters in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 26, 2020. (Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo)

23,344 Mail-In Ballots Voted From Prior Address

According to the Cyber Ninjas’ final report, 23,344 mail-in ballots were received from voters’ previous addresses.

“Mail-in ballots were cast under voter registration IDs for people that may not have received their ballots by mail because they had moved, and no one with the same last name remained at the address. Through extensive data analysis we have discovered approximately 23,344 votes that may have this condition,” the report states.

Cyber Ninjas noted in its report that if ballots are sent by forwardable mail, this would violate the Arizona Elections Procedures Manual.

“The Senate should consider referring this matter to the Attorney General’s Office for a criminal investigation as to whether the requirements of ARS 16-452(C) have been violated,” the company stated in the report.

Maricopa County refuted the allegation on Friday, saying, “Mail-in ballots are not forwarded to another address.” It also asserted that voting from a previous address “is legal under federal election law,” such as in the case of American military and overseas voters. The county also said it had 20,933 one-time temporary address requests for the 2020 general election.

Epoch Times Photo
Ballots from the 2020 general election wait to be counted at Veterans Memorial Coliseum on May 1, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

9,041 More Ballots Returned by Voter Than Received

Cyber Ninjas found that 9,041 more ballots were returned by voters than were sent to them.

According to the report, “9,041 more ballots show as returned in the EV33 Early Voting Returns File for a single individual who voted by mail than show as sent to that individual within the EV32 Early Voting Sent File.” “In most of these instances, an individual was sent one ballot but had two ballots received on different dates.”

Auditors later noted they were told that some of the discrepancies “could be due to the protected voter list,” but has not able to be validated. Maricopa County released a statement to similar effect on Friday.

The county disputed the finding on Twitter, saying the majority of times when there are multiple entries in the EV33 file are when voters “returned a ballot without a signature or with a signature discrepancy,” and in such cases, election staff contact the voter.

Epoch Times Photo
In this screenshot from video, ballots are moved from the Arizona State Fairgrounds to a truck for transport to Maricopa County, in Phoenix, Ariz., on July 29, 2021. (Pool via AP)

Cyber Ninjas: Voters Potentially Voted in Multiple Counties

Cyber Ninjas noted that some 5,295 ballots were affected by voters who potentially voted in multiple counties.

The company said that it had compared Maricopa County’s list of all its voters who cast a ballot in the election (also referred to as the VM55 Final Voted File) to the equivalent files of the other 14 Arizona counties, to find a total of 5,047 voters with the same first, middle, last name, and birth year, representing some 10,342 votes among all the counties.

“The Ballot Impacted was calculated by the total number of votes (10,342) and subtracting the number of maximum number of potential unique people (5,047). This yielded 5,295,” the report said.

Election 2020 Arizona Audit
Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 6, 2021. (Matt York/Pool/AP Photo)

Separately, the company found that the number of ballots tallied in the official Maricopa results were 3,432 more than the total number of people who voted.

“The official result totals do not match the equivalent totals from the Final Voted File (VM55),” Cyber Ninjas said (P12).

Cyber Ninjas said the finding is significant because “the number of individuals who showed up to vote should always match the number of votes cast.” The company recommended that legislation “that would require the Official Canvass to fully reconcile with the Final Voted File” should be considered.

Cyber Ninjas said in another finding that there were 2,592 more duplicate ballots than original ballots sent to duplication—a process for replacing damaged or improperly marked ballots with a new ballot that preserves the voter’s intent.

“This is probably one of the more interesting parts … that we had more duplicates than original ballots,” Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan said in his presentation on Friday. “According to our counts from our audit, we had 26,965 original ballots and we had 29,557 that were duplicate ballots, and those numbers should be the same.

“Based on the numbers received from Maricopa county, we should have had 27,869 of both originals and duplicates and they should have matched up perfectly,” he added.

Other findings of the ballots impacted included 2,382 in-person voters who had moved out of Maricopa County, and 2,081 voters who moved out of state during the 29-day period preceding the election. Responding to the findings, the county said it had completed separate spot checks and found “no discrepancies” for either of the figures.

Cyber Ninjas also reported that there were 1,551 votes counted in excess of voters who voted, as well as a slew of other categories of findings that affected a smaller number of ballots, such as 397 mail-in ballots sent without there being a record of them having been sent, 393 ballots that had incomplete names, 282 votes cast by individuals who “were flagged as deceased,” and 198 votes cast by individuals who registered to vote after the Oct. 15 deadline, among other smaller categories.

Epoch Times Photo
Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are audited at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 29, 2021. (Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via AP/Pool)

17,322 Duplicates of Early Voting Ballot Return Envelopes

Shiva Ayyadurai, who was commissioned by the Senate to “check the signatures or lack thereof” on the early voting ballot (EVB) return envelopes, said during Friday’s presentation that the audit “reveals anomalies raising questions on the verifiability of the signature verification process.”

Ayyadurai said that his team was hired only to verify whether the envelopes contained a signature—not whether the actual signature matched that of the voter in question.

Of the 1,929,242 return envelopes provided by the Senate, 17,322 duplicates were found, with some voters having cast the same ballot three to four times, according to Ayyadurai’s report (pdf). He noted that Maricopa county’s canvass report, meanwhile, did not report any duplicates.

In response to duplicated ballot allegations, Maricopa County wrote Friday, “Re: duplicated ballots. Every time a voter has a questioned signature or a blank envelope, we work with that voter to cure the signature. That’s our staff doing their job to contact voters with questioned signatures or blank ballots. Only one ballot is counted.”

Among other several key findings, Ayyadurai noted that over 25 percent of the duplicate ballots were received between Nov. 4 and Nov. 9, 2020.

maricopa county
Workers examine ballots cast in Maricopa County in the 2020 election during an audit at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 6, 2021. (Matt York/AP Photo)

Allegations of Deletions

Auditors stated in their report that “according to the Master File Table (MFT) of the drives, a large number of files on the Election Management System (EMS) Server and HiPro Scanner machines were deleted.”

“These files would have aided in our review and analysis of the election systems as part of the audit,” the report reads. “The deletion of these files significantly slowed down much of the analysis.”

Maricopa denied the allegation in a Twitter post on Friday, saying, “Maricopa County strongly denies claims that @maricopavote staff intentionally deleted data.” The county also said it has “backups for all Nov. data & those archives were never subpoenaed.”

While auditors finished part of the audit that deals with the ballots, they say an evaluation of voting machine equipment is ongoing.

“Because the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Arizona Senate have recently settled their dispute concerning outstanding subpoena items, this portion of the audit is not yet complete,” the Cyber Ninjas’ report states.

Response to Findings

Jack Sellers, Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement in response to the Senate audit hearing, “The Cyber Ninjas’ opinions come from a misuse and misunderstanding of the data provided by the county and are twisted to fit the narrative that something went wrong.”

“Once again, these ‘auditors’ threw out wild, damaging, false claims in the middle of their audit and Senate leadership provided them the platform to present their opinions, suspicions, and faulty conclusions unquestioned and unchallenged. Today’s hearing was irresponsible and dangerous.”

Arizona Democrats, meanwhile, pounced on the auditors’ report.

“The Cyber Ninjas embarrassed Arizona for months, violated voters’ trust, refused transparency, and stuck AZ taxpayers with a multi-million dollar bill. What’d they find? Biden won,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who has frequently criticized the audit and is trying to become Arizona’s next governor, wrote on Twitter. “The so-called leaders who allowed and encouraged this need to be held accountable in 2022.”

mark brnovich
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich speaks at a news conference in Phoenix, Ariz., on Jan. 7, 2020. . (Bob Christie/AP Photo)

But Fann has long said that the goal of the audit was to improve Arizona’s election system and wasn’t designed to overturn the results.

“Our No. 1 goal is to make sure those laws are followed,” Fann said during Friday’s hearing, adding that there are “a lot of people” with questions about the state’s election integrity. Citing a poll, Fann said that 45 percent of Arizona’s voters had significant distrust in the election system.

Ahead of the official release of the report on Friday afternoon by the state Senate, Trump said the audit uncovered “significant and undeniable” fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“The audit has uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of fraud!” he said in an emailed statement. “I have heard it is far different than that being reported by the fake news media.”

Trump added, “Until we know how and why this happened, our elections will never be secure. This is a major criminal event and should be investigated by the Attorney General immediately.”

Arizona was one of several key swing states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, that were certified for Biden during the Nov. 3 election. Trump won those states, with the exception of Nevada, in 2016. According to official results, Biden won Arizona over Trump by a margin of just over 10,000 votes.

Maricopa County hasn’t responded to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.

Correction: An earlier headline on this article incorrectly stated that Arizona Senate President Karen Fann said the report confirmed a specific candidate had won the election in Maricopa County. Instead, in her comments, she affirmed the findings in the draft audit report, which stated there was no significant difference in the vote tally when recounted. However, Fann did highlight specific concerns with the process, which she referred to Arizona’s attorney general. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

Jack Phillips

Jack Phillips
SENIOR REPORTER
Jack Phillips is a reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.
Mimi Nguyen Ly

Mimi Nguyen Ly
REPORTER
Mimi Nguyen Ly is a reporter based in Australia. She covers world news with a focus on U.S. news. Contact her at mimi.nl@epochtimes.com.
High noon for Biden and Democrats in Arizona
9.25.21: The AZ @udit exposed CRIMINALS! LONG fight ahead for ALL! MSM LIES! PRAY!
When You are AWAKE, You will realize, WE are the LIGHT, WE are the TRUTH, We are the WAY, We are CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS, the second coming of CHRIST.  We are ONE! 
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