Dark Money Groups Tied To Trump Are Funding Arizona Ballot Audit

New reports have revealed that dark money groups tied to Donald Trump through their support of him are also paying lots of money to keep the Arizona ballot audit going. The state had only allocated $150,000 for the stunt, but the real cost is much, much higher than that. Rather than increasing the budget, outside Trump supporters have been using dark money groups to pay for everything from security to salaries as the audit continues to drag on. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A new report has revealed that there are dark money sources tied to Donald Trump that are in fact funding the ballot audit taking place in the state of Arizona. Now, as we've reported in the past, the Arizona legislature originally allocated $150,000 to pay for the ballot audit that is being conducted by a group called Cyber Ninjas. Now, it costs a hell of a lot more than just $150,000 to do this ballot audit. Cyber Ninjas apparently wants a lot of money, but the legislature was not willing to pay the full amount, even though they said they could pay the full amount and we don't even know what that full amount is. So they only sent $150,000 and I think there's a reason for that and I'll get to that in a moment. So the rest of the tab, according to these reports, is being picked up by dark money groups that had supported Donald Trump in the past. Many of them have Trump supporters and even former Trump staffers on their boards.

And unfortunately, again, because this is dark money, we don't know what specific donors Are giving to these groups. Only that the groups themselves are sitting there funding this and they're funding everything. They're funding extra security around the area. You know, they're paying for those idiotic t-shirts that they have to wear to, you know, be able to tell who's doing which job. They're paying for the actual expense of it all. And if it weren't for these individuals, these dark money groups tied to Trump, this audit would have been dead in the water because again, legislature only allocated $150,000 to It. And the reason I believe for that is because had they pull, put the full amount in there, which I imagine has to be well over at least a million dollars, and if you were to do something like that then you're going to raise eyebrows in your home state.

Because people understand this is not going to, you know, have any of the intended benefits that the Republicans think it's going to have. This is not going to overturn the 2020 election. This is not going to uncover any real cases of fraud. This isn't going to do anything. So if the legislature had wasted a million, 2 million, 10 million, whatever, it may be on this, they would have faced very serious questions from their constituents at home. But by only spending $150,000 to them, that's pocket change, right? They could spend that all day long and nobody's going to bat an eye. But once you get up into the millions people start wanting answers. That's where the dark money groups come in. So we don't know who's funding it. We don't know where the money is coming from.

And we don't know if thing's ever going to end at this point. I mean, this thing started back in April. We're rapidly approaching mid June at this point. No evidence of fraud has yet to be revealed. But these dark money groups, these Trump supporters and Trump friends, are going to continue to fund this until they're physically unable to do so anymore. But, this also shows you what a farce this is. If the Republicans in that state legislature had had faith in this ballot audit, they would have funded the whole thing day one. But they knew how it was going to end and that's why they said, you know what, let's keep our hands clean. Let's let the dark money people pay for it. And then we don't have to answer to anybody.