Senate President Karen Fann sat down with J.T. Harris on Conservative Circus to talk about a recent Senate controversy, decertification of electors, audit-related subpoenas, and the high level of public support (even among Democrats) for the audit. Listen to her interview:
TRANSCRIPT
J.T. Harris (Interviewer): The President did punch down a little bit. He punched down on Senator Paul Boyer and had a very interesting exchange, but the reality of this whole thing is, is that uh that there is attention once again, national attention, on the audit. In the center ring of the conservative circus we have Senate President Karen Fann and Senate President Fann I have to say I have built up a whole new level of respect for you after watching your exchange with Senator Boyer, and I know you’re probably going to answer this question carefully I understand that but uh I want you weight in on this controversy. That is, reaction to the controversy, the conversation about the audit the other day
Karen Fann: Ok. So tell me specifically what you want to know because there is a lot of controversy.
Harris: [Laughing]
Fann: Narrow it down for me J.T.
Harris: When he was…his response to the President where he was talking about the uh audit how it shouldn’t have taken place, he was talking also about how the President you know with the insurrection. I talked a little bit earlier about how all these people went on CNN to explain their position, but when CNN came after you I think you handled it brilliantly sticking to the fact that we’re just trying to make this audit umm this audit is trying to make this election better for 2022, 2024 going forward.
Fann: Right. So, okay, so in context of that controversy, yes. Um I don’t know why I have a Senator who is, has now gone, I’m going to say, has over to the dark side, for lack of anything else. Um, you know, all of our Senators, all 16 of us Republicans Senators had all agreed um in a caucus that we wanted to do this audit for all the reasons you just stated.
And, when I say all 16, well then when it came down to, so they said yes, issued the subpoenas, we want the information, and we want the audit yada, yada, yada. Umm, and so we did that and then as you know the course of time that went by, and Maricopa County has refused to fulfill all those requirements even though they are court ordered, and that is what has drug this thing out so long.
Why, you know, we didn’t want to move the ballots, they made us move the ballots. Umm we wanted to work together with this they, you know, they basically without saying it publicly, said you know we’re going to do everything in our power to drag this out and try and discredit you.
And Senator, that Senator, is the one that has now sided with them who would not vote for, the resolution of contempt to uh force them to give us that extra material, and now he is going so far as he’s out there just trying to defend them, and some misinformation that they’re putting out there. So, it’s extremely frustrating and when you have a 16-14 margin that I can’t get that 16 person to make sure Maricopa County complies with the law and our subpoenas.
Harris: And so very, very curious, like you said you have them all on board at one point and then all of a sudden when it comes down to crunch time there’s one, always that one Republican that stands out for whatever reasons, although I have some speculations. We have Senate President Karen Fann in the center ring. A recent poll shows a considerable amount of Democrats approve of this audit. What do you generally hear from people about the audit?
Fann: Well, I’ll tell you from all the hundreds and thousands of e-mails I get about two-thirds of them are very, very positive, um about a third of them are really nasty. So, on the whole I think people really do want to uh want to see election integrity from both sides of the aisle.
I think the biggest frustration I have right now is the liberal media. Uh because they are not reporting both sides, they’re not reporting the actual, what they’re spinning, you know, all their doing is spinning everything Maricopa County says and so we’re not able, thank God we have you, and a few other conservative stations that actually want to hear the real truth, and the real truth is, is this is about election integrity and if you watch the hearing umm last Thursday you saw that there are some serious problems. I’m not saying there’s fraud we have not proven that yet, um, nor do I know that there is.
What we do right now, know, is two and two is not adding up to four, Maricopa County would rather play games via their Twitter account and try and cover up or try and make excuses for all the things that we found, but they’re not mature enough to come and sit down at the table with us and say okay let’s go through this and and figure out where two and two are not adding up, and if there are some problems let’s fix it. I do not understand why they are going to continue to do this, other than, I have to ask, what is it they’re afraid of?
It’s, this is, a serious, honest election audit to make sure that everybody’s vote counts. And when you have forty five percent of the people that say they have serious questions and problems with our election system, why aren’t we answering those questions. If there are rumors that are unfounded then let’s put those to bed. If there’s something there that is there let’s fix it.
Harris: The County leadership of Maricopa County leadership they they absolutely say they are completely, utterly, dug in. Where do you go from here?
Fann: Well we have some other options, and I’m glad you brought this up J.T. because we are getting some some e-mails and I’m starting to get a few nasty e-mails from our own base because there’s some false information going on about there. So, there was a YouTube put out by somebody we all know about four days ago saying “oh yeah President Fann has the ability to de-certify uh the electors,” this, that, and the other. So, let’s clear that up really quickly, with respect to de-certify the electors.
Um, I don’t have the power to do that. First and foremost remember this is not what the intent was when we came in, our intent is election integrity. Now, if, and that’s a big if, but if we uh can prove that the numbers were not correct, if that’s what the audit shows, then it will go to court and the courts are going to have to adjudicate. They’re going to look at it and say okay you’re going to have to prove it. Trust me that we’re going to get hit with a lot of lawsuits to say prove it. And so, that proof is going to have to be one-hundred-percent, six ways from Sunday, as they say.
Now, if there is, whether it was intentional, non-intentional, fraud or not, if those numbers pan out that the people that were elected were not in fact truly got enough votes, enough honest, legal votes, let’s put it that way, then the courts will say okay you’ve proven your case and we find that it is true.
Then and only then at that case, what happens then, is that the House and the Senate, the Arizona House and Senate bodies, would have to put up a resolution on the board that would take a simple majority that would quote, “de-certify” and turn it over to the uh, the Attorney General’s Office for Prosecution or whatever.
Now, what happens we’re in the same boat that we are in right now. First of all we need sixteen and thirty-one so, I got to get that sixteen vote in the Senate and we’ve got to make sure that Speaker Bowers has thirty-one votes over in the House, and only then. So let’s put that to rest. There is another e-mail going on about oh she can just issue a warrant, she can, I cannot issue a warrant.
Harris: If you are a regular listener to the Conservative Circus, this is Christmas in July. We have Senate President Karen Fann in the center ring of the Conservative Circus and she is giving us info. I’m telling you if you want to know what’s going on with the audit this is where you need to be. We talk to the people who are over the thing, and we want to welcome Senate President Karen Fann back to the center ring of the Conservative Circus. I asked you where do we go from here, uh and you started to answer questions that I think people have been waiting for. You talked about the steps that have to take place if there is a serious problem uh with the uh results. There is a recourse and then you told us about how you’re hearing from hundreds of people and there are people even upset within our base at some of the e-mails uh you are receiving. I want you to continue talking about uh the warrants, uh let you go from there.
Fann: Yeah. So there’s some confusion there. People are thinking instead of the subpoena I can just issue warrants. I can’t. Um, not for this purpose. Um, for the Senate procedures the warrants here uh that’s related in 2-D of the Senate rolls. A warrant refers to either the payment of a bill, or a warrant that would be done after the resolution of contempt was done.
So, we already talked about that. So, if I had the sixteen votes to pass the resolution of contempt then I would issue a warrant to go compel the Board of Supervisors to come here and answer questions, or am compelling them to bring that stuff, or they’re serious ramifications there. So, the—I cannot just wave a magic wand and issue a warrant because I don’t have the power to do that contrary to what’s out there.
Now, where do we go from here? Well we do have the ability to do is we have the ability to take them back to court. We have the ability to issue new subpoenas. We have the ability to do full requests. We have the ability to um, to continue as a Senate body to uh to have people, we can have hearings and have people testify as to the shenanigans they may have seen if there was any. Or, if people that worked at Maricopa County elections and things that they viewed—so we still have a lot of options to do. It’s just that these things do take time and we have not proven a hundred percent, we know two and two is not adding up to four, we need those answers and we’re going to do whatever we can to get those answers to either prove that there was a problem or disprove the rumors.
Harris: We have Senate President Karen Fann in the center ring. Let me ask you this, and thank you for that explanation. And again, I mean I don’t understand why we can’t pick up a newspaper and get this type of information, but this is just how skewed and how just uh in the bed, the, the media is. And also, I know there’s folks on our side of the, the, that are making things convoluted as well.
So what can we do to finally bring a resolution to this matter? What can we the people who are sitting out here listening to this conversation that we’re having right now, what can they do to help you and getting down to the nitty gritty of what was going on?
Fann: Thank you J.T. I think that’s the first time somebody has asked what can we do to help you? Um, here’s the deal, uh what we need to do is do not let the liberal media and the Democrats divide us on this. This is exactly what they want to do. They keep saying, the liberal media keeps saying, if we tell the lie often enough, or, or, I, I twist the truth often enough you guys will start believing it. And when you guys start believing it then that’s when we start turning on each other.
I can assure you from the bottom of my heart we are doing this, and we are doing whatever it’s going to take that we can to get this complete and get it done honestly and fairly regardless of what the media is trying to do. And that goes for Maricopa County, and guess what? I think you guys need to hold Maricopa County, if they, accountable. If they do not have anything to hide then what’s the problem? What’s the problem here?
You know they said they would give us the routers, then they said oh no we can’t give you the routers because it might jeopardize some of our Sheriff’s Deputies, well we know that’s not a fact. Now they’re putting something out there and saying oh there were no routers involved so we’ve gone full circle with them on that one. Katie Hobbs says oh we can’t use the machines anymore because we can’t certify that you guys didn’t tamper with it, you auditors. Well if that’s the case then how did the company certify the machines to begin with before the election that they had not been tampered with?
So, there’s another, you know, they keep spinning this. If you can’t prove the machines haven’t been tampered with then why are we even using the machines to begin with?