Hannah Klain, daughter of President Joe Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain, recently signed a letter urging the Justice Department to deploy federal monitors to monitor the Arizona State Senate’s audit of 2020 presidential votes in Maricopa County.
The letter, from three groups — the Brennan Center for Justice, the Leadership Conference Education Fund, and Protect Democracy — was sent last week to the Justice Department, expressing concern that the auditors are “engaged in ongoing and imminent violations of federal voting and election laws.”
“[W]e request that you send federal monitors as soon as practicable to the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum,” the letter said. “Ballots that are protected under federal law are in imminent danger of being subject to unlawful voter intimidation as a result of flawed audit procedure.”
Klain signed the letter in her capacity as the Equal Justice Works Selbin Family Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
The letter implied the Arizona state senate’s review of the 2020 presidential election results is illegitimate, using the term “so-called audit” and putting the word “audit” in parentheses. It also complained about the firm commissioned to conduct the work, Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors.
Klain and other co-signers said they believe:
[T]he senate and its agents, including Cyber Ninjas are 1) violating their duty under federal law to retain and preserve ballots cast in a federal election, which are and have been in danger of being stolen, defaced, or irretrievably damaged, and 2) preparing to engage in conduct which will constitute unlawful voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws.
They claimed the DOJ has the authority to monitor the audit under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, arguing DOJ monitoring is “critical to the protection of civil rights and the enforcement of voting rights and election laws.”
The signees claimed, based on media reports, that after Maricopa County election officials handed over the approximately 2.1 million ballots to the state senate and Cyber Ninjas, “they began exposing the ballots to damage, destruction, and loss, in violation of federal law.”
The letter complained authorized observers to the audit were 70 percent Republican, citing a press conference by senate liaison for the audit and former Secretary of State Ken Ben Arizona nett.
However, the letter did not include Bennett’s statement that state Democrats were trying to keep people from volunteering as observers and his appeal for Democrats to volunteer to be an observer. He said at minute 13:45, “We want as many from all parties as possible.”
The letter said the signees are concerned about “prospective” violations of laws prohibiting voter intimidation due to the audit’s Statement of Work, which includes questioning voters and generating reports on unlawful voters. These tactics could cause “fear,” they wrote.
Just six days after the letter was sent, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Sen. Karen Fann, the president of the Arizona State Senate.
Karlan’s letter echoed the complaints made in Klain’s letter — namely that ballots and other election materials “are not being adequately safeguarded by contractors at an insecure facility, and are at risk of being lost, stolen, altered, compromised or destroyed.”
A recent NPR article on the letter noted Karlan’s letter “followed a request by the Brennan Center for Justice and voting rights organization,” but did not mention Biden’s chief of staff’s daughter was one of the signatories.
A recent Sunday Times piece touted her father’s power as chief of staff for Biden, noting how “Washington insiders” call him “President Klain.”
This is an excerpt from Honest Columnist.
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