Donald Trump’s Save America PAC secretly funded 2020 Arizona election ‘audit’

A $1,000,000 donation to the group responsible for the sham “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 election results came from former president Donald Trump’s Save America PAC, according to analysis of publicly available data by the watchdog group Documented.

The analysis, which was first reported by The Guardian, was based on campaign finance disclosures, tax filings, and communications records obtained by another transparency group. It contradicts statements made by Mr Trump’s associates who denied he had anything to do with the effort to “audit” election results in Arizona’s most populous county.

The group found that a million-dollar donation flowed from the Trump PAC, which was his primary political operation from the end of his term as president until he launched his third presidential campaign late last year, to attorney Cleta Mitchell, a right-wing activist who tried to help Mr Trump overturn 2020 election results across the US, and who was forced to resign from her law firm partnership as a result.

Ms Mitchell, who now works at a conservative nonprofit affiliated with many ex-Trump administration figures, directed the donation to the Arizona audit effort.

Bill Gates, the Republican vice-chair of the Maricopa county board of supervisors at the time of the Cyber Ninjas audit, said he was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the revelation that Mr Trump had helped to fund it.

He told The Guardian he has “no problem with audits,” but stressed that he objects to “an audit that is undertaken with a goal in mind, and that is literally being funded by one of the candidates”.

“This is absolutely what we do not want to happen,” he said.