Pro-Trump security firm behind Arizona 'audit' announces it's shutting down: report

On Thursday, Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based cybersecurity firm that conducted the controversial partisan "audit" of votes in Maricopa County, Arizona, announced that it was laying off all of its employees, including CEO Doug Logan, and shutting down.

This comes shortly after a report from the Associated Press that the company was held in contempt by an Arizona judge for blocking access to records over its practices during the audit, and faces a fine of $50,000 per day for every day that it fails to turn over the documents.

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Cyber Ninjas was hired by the Arizona State Senate to conduct the audit, partially at taxpayer expense, in the hopes of confirming former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about the election being stolen. The audit faced criticism from the start for its lack of transparency to the press and for pursuing fanciful lines of investigation, like searching for bamboo fibers in ballots to prove they were fabricated in Asia. Even some pro-Trump commentators blasted the effort as an embarrassment.

Ultimately, the investigation failed to find any evidence the election had been stolen, and actually found more votes for President Joe Biden that had not been counted.