By Mary Fanning and Alan Jones | The American Report | May 17, 2021
In response to the Arizona Senate’s subpoena of Maricopa County routers during the Arizona 2020 election audit, former Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) Election Security Lead Matt Masterson said that “The routers aren’t needed to audit election results.” At CISA, Masterson worked with now-fired CISA Director Christopher Krebs and now-resigned CISA Deputy Director Matt Travis.
Christopher Krebs is the disgraced former DHS CISA director whom President Trump fired via Twitter on November 17, 2020 after Krebs and CISA falsely proclaimed that the 2020 U.S. election was “the most secure in American history.”
The ever-growing mountain of forensic evidence about the 2020 U.S. election has subsequently proven Krebs’ statement to be false.
Masterson criticized the Arizona Senate’s subpoena of the routers and questioned why the Arizona Senate’s election audit contractor Cyber Ninjas would need the routers.
Masterson, however, like Krebs and Travis, is no longer employed by CISA. Masterson is also no longer employed by his previous employer, the Election Assistance Commision (EAC).
Further, even if Masterson were still employed by CISA or EAC, Masterson would have no legal authority to compel the Arizona Senate or Cyber Ninjas to conduct the Arizona Senate’s audit in a manner preferable to Masterson and his former CISA colleague Krebs.
For a former federal bureaucrat no longer employed by EAC or CISA, Masterson appears particularly worried about the prospect of the Arizona Senate and Cyber Ninjas getting their hands on the Maricopa County routers. Maricopa County’s routers are not federal government property.
For the sake of emphasis, it is worth repeating that the “Arizona Republic” reported in a May 11, 2021 article titled “Election experts say giving Maricopa County routers to election auditors could be security threat” that: “The routers aren’t needed to audit election results, and the lack of clear answers about why the Senate’s contractors want them raises questions, said Matt Masterson.”
The fact that Masterson actually said “the routers aren’t needed to audit election results” raises a more profound question: What is Matt Masterson hoping to hide?
Masterson and his former CISA associate Chris Krebs appear to be a tag team.
Krebs also does not want information revealed from the Maricopa County routers. Krebs tweeted, “I’m assuming the demand [for the Maricopa County physical routers] is based on lack of understanding of how AZ state/county systems work. I’m hoping they’ll withdraw [the subpoena]. If not, its [sic] the equivalent of ransomware or denial of service attack. It’ll be a tell that they’re seeking to disrupt ops & have no idea what they’re doing.”
Masterson routinely retweets Chris Krebs.
The Arizona Senate and Cyber Ninjas are attempting to obtain and forensically audit evidence that they have every right to review — evidence that former CISA bureaucrats have no jurisdiction over.
Before Joining Krebs At CISA, Masterson Was Commissioner Of The Election Assistance Commission (EAC)
Before joining CISA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, Masterson was the Commissioner of the federal government’s EAC, where he oversaw its certification of election systems from election system vendors.
EAC’s Masterson had election systems tested at private contractor “laboratories” in Huntsville, Alabama and in the Denver, Colorado area. Election security activists and the mainstream media have criticized some of the laboratories used by EAC for operating in secrecy.
“The routers aren’t needed to audit election results, and the lack of clear answers about why the Senate’s contractors want them raises questions, said Matt Masterson, former head of election security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,” the “Arizona Republic” reported in a May 11, 2021 article titled “Election experts say giving Maricopa County routers to election auditors could be security threat.”
According to the “Arizona Republic”:
[Masterson] said when voting systems are tested at the federal level, there is typically:
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- Full transparency about the standards used to test the equipment.
- Details about how the equipment will be tested.
- Information about what will be included in the final report.
The private contractors haven’t provided that clarity.
“The request leaves those who understand these systems and processes with their hand up in the air saying, ‘What are you doing? What are you trying to do?” Masterson said.
Masterson is correct about one thing — the lack of transparency does raise questions — and those questions are about Matt Masterson.
Dominion Voting Systems, using EAC as a gatekeeper under the pretense that EAC hold authority to , demanded that only EAC-accredited auditors be allowed to audit the election.
While election system vendors provide local governments with election systems and technology, the vendors do not operate or oversee the elections themselves. That responsibility falls on local election officials such as state and county leaders.
According to a May 13, 2021 tweet by Brahm Resnik, a reporter for NBC affiliate KPNX, and subsequently reported by the Washington Examiner, one of the election system vendors, Dominion Voting Systems, released a statement regarding the Maricopa County Audit and Cyber Ninjas:
Dominion voluntarily provides access to voting machine equipment and information to auditors who have been accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. We happily did so with the independent EAC-accredited providers that Maricopa County hired for system auditing earlier this year.
If Cyber Ninjas went through the process of successfully obtaining EAC accreditation, Dominion would of course cooperate, as we do with all federally accredited auditors.
However, not only is Cyber Ninjas unaccredited, but they have also already demonstrated bias and incompetence, including committing a serious breach of the secure chain of custody that protects voting equipment, which has been deemed by the U.S government as critical infrastructure.
Releasing Dominion’s intellectual property to an unaccredited, biased, and plainly unreliable actor such as Cyber Ninjas would be reckless, causing irreperable damage to the commercial interests of the company and the election security interests of the country. No company should be compelled to participate in such an irresponsible act.
— Dominion Voting Systems Statement
Masterson appears to be a “biased” actor.
Masterson retweeted Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) proclaiming “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”
The Arizona Senate-ordered audit reported via Twitter that “Maricopa County deleted a directory full of election databases from the 2020 election cycle days before the election equipment was delivered to the audit. This is spoliation of evidence!”
Masterson retweeted a May 14, 2021 tweet by Maricopa County that stated “The 2020 elections were run w/ integrity, the results certified by the county & state were accurate, & the 2 independent audits conducted by the County are the true final word on the subject. We know auditing. The Senate Cyber Ninja audit is not a real audit.”
Masterson: Russia, Russia, Russia
Masterson is also still trotting out the tired argument that anyone who questions the integrity of the 2020 U.S. election is only helping Vladimir Putin — a variation on the Trump Russia collusion hoax pushed by Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, Robert Mueller, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Bernstein, Rachel Maddow, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Daily Beast, among countless others.
Masterson said during a Zoom conference:
I think you have hit at the crux of the problem. What we know is that this was already part as I said of our adversaries’ playbook to undermine confidence in our democracy and now they are watching us do it to ourselves and amplifying that and so this is now for election officials that I talk to everyday this is now part of their reality is struggling with doing everything correctly by the book — canvassing, auditing, litigating — and still being presented with outlandish theories, lies, whatever to undermine confidence in the democratic process and the only people that benefit are as Tammy said those who are raising money of off this and more directly ah, you know, Vladimir Putin and Russia, who get to watch us undermine our own democracy.
Matt Masterson’s Former CISA Colleagues Christopher Krebs And Matt Travis Are Connected To James Clapper, Whom A CIA Contractor-Turned-Whistleblower Says Commandeered With John Brennan A Foreign Surveillance Tool Known As HAMMER / SCORECARD
DNI James Clapper, CISA Director Christopher Krebs, CISA Deputy Director Matthew Travis, CISA Election Security Lead Matthew Masterson
The American Report stated in a November 13, 2020 article titled “DHS Cyber Director Chris Krebs And Deputy Director Matt Travis Tied To Clapper Who Commandeered HAMMER / SCORECARD”:
Director Krebs claims that HAMMER and SCORECARD are a “hoax,” a talking point with which the mainstream media and the “fact checkers” are now running.
Krebs worked closely with intelligence contractor Kevin P. O’Prey at Obsidian Analysis. O’Prey hired and worked closely with U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper (Ret.) at DFI International. Clapper received a $50,000 exit bonus from DFI then awarded O’Prey’s DFI branch a contract with Clapper’s Pentagon office that oversaw THE HAMMER and SCORECARD.
Clapper illegally commandeered the super-survillance system THE HAMMER. SCORECARD was one of exploits that ran on THE HAMMER framework and that secretly stole elections.
Clapper was previously caught lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee about unlawful U.S. government surveillance of Americans.
James Clapper and John Brennan illegally commandeered THE HAMMER and SCORECARD less than two weeks after President Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
…Christopher Krebs, the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director who claims that HAMMER and SCORECARD are a hoax and reportedly expects to be fired by President Trump, was a principal at Obsidian Analysis, a Washington D.C. intelligence consulting firm co-founded in 2010 by Kevin P. O’Prey and Matthew K. Travis.
Both Obsidian Analysis co-founders O’Prey and Travis have been executives at intelligence contracting firm DFI International, where O’Prey hired retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper.
There is no law that requires a state Senate to use only an EAC-accredited auditor. In fact, states are not required to use EAC certified election systems.
What would propel Masterson to insinuate such a demand?
Official EAC Document “6 Tips For Conducting Election Audits”: “There is no single national auditing standard,” Yet Masterson Is Acting Like Arizona Senate Contractor Cyber Ninjas Is Somehow Required To Use Standards And Transparency “Typically” Used At The Federal Level
According to an EAC “QUICK TIPS” document titled “6 Tips For Conducting Election Audits,” posted on August 3, 2017 and currently available at EAC’s official website”:
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has collaborated with local election officials to develop a series of helpful tips for election management. This series provides tips and suggests best practices that help you to run efficient and effective elections.
There is no single national auditing standard and methods can vary from risk limiting, fixed percentage, tiered audits, or a combination of one or more types. The best audits use statistical techniques to determine the amount of auditing required to limit the possibility that an election is incorrectly decided…
…[TIP #] 6. Conducting Your Post-Election Audit…
…Create…A rigorous security and chain of custody procedure including sign in/out logs and a security video…
Notably, these are “tips,” not rules, not the rule of law, and not regulations. EAC has no jurisdiction over the state audit process.
The cozy relationship between EAC and election equipment vendors resembles the tight-knit relationship between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies, or the FAA and aircraft manufacturers and airlines. However, unlike those federal regulators, EAC has no authority over state and local elections and their officials.
At EAC, Masterson Oversaw Voting System Testing
Of note, according to former EAC Commissioner Masterson’s biography at EAC’s official website:
…Mr. Masterson held multiple roles at the Election Assistance Commission from 2006 to 2011. Mr. Masterson was the Deputy Director for the EAC’s Voting System Testing and Certification Program… Mr. Masterson managed the day to day business of the EAC’s laboratory accreditation program including the creation of the EAC’s Voting System Test Laboratory Program Manual.
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COPYRIGHT 2021 MARY FANNING AND ALAN JONES
