Questions raised after OAN personality raises $150,000 for Trump ballot audit in Arizona

According to a report from 12News/NBC, questions are being raised about $150,000 reportedly raised by a One America News personality that is supposed to go toward an audit of ballots in Arizona despite the fact that the audit is already funded.

That audit, approved by Arizona Republicans, is being undertaken in an effort to prove -- in part -- that Donald Trump lost his re-election bid due to voter fraud -- a cause that OAN host Christina Bobb has pushed on her show.

According to a tweet posted by Bobb (which can be seen below): "Our goal is to fund $150,000 to cover the expenses of the audit, which will ensure its complete scope of work. We don't want any portion of the audit cut out. We're $10k away from our goal. Hope to have a "mission complete" message for you by the weekend! " followed by "Mission accomplished!! Thank you, Patriots! We've met our goal. Anything extra we receive will be added and we can donate more than planned."

That audit is being conducted by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, with News 12 reporting the owner "has also promoted false conspiracy theories about the election."

According to Ken Bennett, the former Republican secretary of state who is the Senate's audit spokesman, the existing funding may not be enough to cover the costs, saying, "We're probably going to have a mechanism for people to donate to help defray those costs. Maybe it won't end up costing the Senate one dime, but it won't be more than 150."

At issue is the fact that the audit is already being funded with $150,000 in taxpayer dollars and Republican Governor Doug Ducey has a "signed a bill that bans the use of private funding for elections."

Add to that, questions are being raised about where the OAN host's donation money came from.

"There are many, many red flags about what is happening that would potentially result in a finding that the use of private funding is improper," explained Roopali Desai, an election law attorney from Phoenix.

"Are they making sure that the money that they're raising for this audit isn't being paid for by Russian operatives or some other country that is interested in finding fraud in our elections and undermining the public trust? It smells bad. It looks bad. There are no safeguards in place."

You can read more here.