Conan Hayes "at the center of many of the most critical points of Trump's effort to undermine democracy.”
If you’ve been following the travails of Conan Hayes, you’ll know his jagged trajectory from tamer of giant Cloudbreak and Teahupoo to toy merchant to detective uncovering electoral frauds.
Now, following the arrest of a third Mesa County election official, Colorado’s The Daily Sentinel has revealed investigations are “ongoing” into Conan’s role in the alleged scheme to make copies of election software.
A little background.
Back in March, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peter was indicted by a Mesa County grand jury on seven felony and three misdemeanor counts of election tampering and misconduct after Colorado officials said she “allowed an unauthorized person into a secure facility during an annual upgrade to the county’s election equipment software, compromising the equipment.”
That person, it’s alleged, is Conan.
Though previous court documents hinted at his identity, the affidavit names that person, California resident Conan James Hayes. So far, no charges have been filed against him or others cited in the affidavit, such as Garfield County resident Sherronna Bishop, but it indicates investigations are ongoing.
“Brown conspired to misrepresent the role and identity of the person — Conan Hayes — who they intended to use, and did use, to copy the hard drive by using the identity of Gerald Wood,” Cannon wrote in the affidavit.
“Brown’s actions, statements and/or inactions were a — successful — attempt to influence the public servant’s decisions and actions before and during the trusted build through Sandra’s misrepresentations,” Cannon added. “Wood no longer is a target of the investigation. The person who completed that computer services using Wood’s identity is still under investigation.”
A story in Vice on the “MAGA Army profiting off Trump’s election lies,” described Conan as being “at the center of many of the most critical points of Trump’s effort to undermine democracy.”
He was part of Byrne’s “Bad News Bears” team in D.C. in the weeks after the election, working to find voting anomalies. Then he was in Antrim County, Michigan, as part of a team flown in by Byrne to examine Dominion voting machines. The resulting report, written in part by Hayes, was held up by Trump in the Oval Office as proof of voter fraud, the former Attorney General Bill Barr told the January 6 committee.
Then, Hayes was reportedly in Phoenix for the bogus Maricopa County recount effort led by Cyber Ninjas. And in August, QAnon influencer-turned-congressional candidate Ron Watkins claimed that Hayes was the person who took hard-drive images from Dominion voting machines in Mesa County, Colorado, where clerk Tina Peters is currently facing felony charges for tampering with election equipment.
Darkly exciting.