Forensic auditor in Maricopa: he did NOT backtrack – fake news CNN, AP

Ben Cotton, a forensic auditor helping conduct an audit of 2020 election machines in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, said on Thursday that reports claiming he backtracked on allegations that files were deleted from one of the machines are FALSE.

He DID NOT backtrack.

“My testimony on May 19th before the AZ Senate is being taken out of context by some media outlets. To confirm: the ‘Databases’ directory on the EMS Primary Server WAS deleted containing the voting databases. I was able to recover the deleted databases through forensic data recovery processes,” Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR, said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times by the audit’s liaison.

Some reports, including articles from the Associated Press (AP) and CNN, alleged auditors had “backtracked” from or “reversed” allegations that files were deleted from a machine.

AP, for instance, claimed that Cotton said, “data was not destroyed, reversing earlier allegations that election officials in the state’s most populated county eliminated evidence.”

CNN claimed that auditors “backtracked” from claims that a key database had been deleted.

They left out Cotton’s testimony because this is what our fake news does.

Cotton said in examining the machine that he discovered a master file table “that clearly indicated that the database directory was deleted from that server.”

“Subsequently, I’ve been able to recover all of those deleted files, and I have access to that data,” he said. “I have the information I need from the recovery efforts of the data.”

2/2) I was able to recover the deleted databases through forensic data recovery processes. We are performing data continuity checks to ensure that the recovered databases are usable.

— Maricopa Arizona Audit (@ArizonaAudit) May 19, 2021

Maricopa County states that they did not delete the files and presented some indicators but Cotton says they did delete them. Maricopa is desperate to stop the audit and Cotton hasn’t been caught lying at this point.

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