Trump’s lies and costly investigations have damaged Arizona for a decade

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The conservative organization given unparalleled authority to uncover potential election fraud in Arizonas 2020 is empty -handed after several months of its investigation, according to a draft report obtained by NBC News affiliate KPNX of Phoenix .

The so-called audit came after former President Donald Trump and his entourage publicly questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election following Joe Biden’s victory.

To be clear, the investigation led by Cyber ​​Ninjas, a Florida -based cybersecurity company, will never be legitimate, regardless of the results. The owner behind the group is a conspiracy theory that has spread lies about the 2020 election, and even some local Republicans have admitted that is surprisingly embarrassing.

But this isn’t the first time Trump and his supporters have used Arizona to launch costly, anti-democratic, conspiracy theories. In fact, many in the past decade.

Anjali Nair / MSNBC; Getty; AP

In 2011, Trump was the strongest voice to spread conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama saying he sent people to Hawaii to inspect the Obamas ’birth certificate. Trump’s no-nonsense claim that Obama was not born in the US is meant to undermine Obama’s legitimacy as president.

I have people studying it and they can’t believe what they see, Trump said on the show on NBCs TODAY at the time.

That should be familiar.

That same year, tea activists in Arizona connected with Trump and his comrades to discuss the so -called birther conspiracy.

That should be familiar,

The first group to contact was the Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots, through one of the group’s co-founders, a conservative activist named Kelly Townsend. At the time, Townsend and Arizona Republicans used Trumps conspiracy theory to push a law that would get Obama on the 2012 presidential ballot if he didn’t prove his citizenship as Republicans wanted.

As The Arizona Republic reported:

[Townsend] wanted to ask Donald Trump to visit Arizona and rally for the bill. Townsend, who will win a seat in the House next year, consulted with then Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, an advocate of the bill. Seel wrote to Trump and got an invitation to the Trump Tower in New York.

After that meeting with Trump, Republican lawmakers in Arizona agreed to pass the bill in early 2011. But then-Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, eventually vetoed the proposed law.

That same year, another Arizona tea party group reached out to Trump associate and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi to push for an investigation into Obama’s birthplace. Brian Reilly, a member of the Surprise Tea Party Patriots, set up a meeting between Corsi and then Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Here is how the Republic explained that meeting:

[T]he Reillys, Corsi and several other members of the Surprise Tea Party went to downtown Phoenix to meet with Arpaio. Reilly arrives at this point, telling the sheriff, ‘From the Surprise Tea Party and is here to talk to you about the presidents’ birth certificates.’

Arpaio announced an investigation into Obama next year.

Like his statements encouraging farcical scrutiny in this year’s election, Trump began Arpaio’s poor scrutiny.

Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful investigation into Cold Case Posse alleging that @BarackObamas’s birth certificate was fake, Trump said in a 2012 tweet.

In 2016, Arpaio closed his investigation without evidence of fraud. However, the investigation was doomed from the start as it was reported to have collected an unknown amount of money and significant attention for national right media figures. The same was said about the fruitless Arizona election audit.

Head over to The ReidOut Blogfor more.

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Ja’han Jones is the writer of The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. Her previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

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