Tucked inside of an article by The New York Times piecing together how former President Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers tried to keep him in power despite a handy defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, is the tale of a wacky goose chase indulged by Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and his staff.
Gosar’s chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, according to documents filed at the Supreme Court this March, was on the hunt for an airplane headed to the U.S. from South Korea, which Gosar and other election fraud conspiracy theorists believed contained a cache of stolen ballots.
According to a lawsuit filed by voter Staci Burk challenging Arizona’s election results, the mythical quest began when Ryan Hartwig, an independent journalist and former contributor to the right-wing group Project Veritas, received a tip that a plane originally dispatched from South Korea had landed in Arizona’s Sky Harbor Airport on the night of the election. It was headed to Seattle, Washington.
On Nov. 7, Gosar reportedly sent Van Flein to the airport and it was there that Van Flein waited with a smattering of election fraud conspiracy enthusiasts including Josh Barnett, then a Republican candidate running for Arizona’s 7th district, and activist Marko Trickovic.
Together, the men recorded footage of the plane and essentially spied on people loading cargo onto the aircraft. Barnett and “another witness,” Burk said, followed the men from the tarmac to their homes and recorded their addresses. Trickovic stayed behind and reached out to Mark Lamb, the Pinal County Sheriff.
Hartwig later uploaded the footage to his website.
Though they found a plane, no proof of the mystery ballots was ever turned up and the claims were found to be baseless.
Van Flein, Hartwig and Trickovic did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
Though this detail has been known for several months, its reemergence serves as a cogent reminder that elected U.S. officials, including Gosar, were hellbent on promoting baseless conspiracies.
Notably, the Supreme Court also tossed Burk’s case without comment.
Gosar’s chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, according to documents filed at the Supreme Court this March, was on the hunt for an airplane headed to the U.S. from South Korea, which Gosar and other election fraud conspiracy theorists believed contained a cache of stolen ballots.
According to a lawsuit filed by voter Staci Burk challenging Arizona’s election results, the mythical quest began when Ryan Hartwig, an independent journalist and former contributor to the right-wing group Project Veritas, received a tip that a plane originally dispatched from South Korea had landed in Arizona’s Sky Harbor Airport on the night of the election. It was headed to Seattle, Washington.
On Nov. 7, Gosar reportedly sent Van Flein to the airport and it was there that Van Flein waited with a smattering of election fraud conspiracy enthusiasts including Josh Barnett, then a Republican candidate running for Arizona’s 7th district, and activist Marko Trickovic.
Together, the men recorded footage of the plane and essentially spied on people loading cargo onto the aircraft. Barnett and “another witness,” Burk said, followed the men from the tarmac to their homes and recorded their addresses. Trickovic stayed behind and reached out to Mark Lamb, the Pinal County Sheriff.
Hartwig later uploaded the footage to his website.
Though they found a plane, no proof of the mystery ballots was ever turned up and the claims were found to be baseless.
Van Flein, Hartwig and Trickovic did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
Though this detail has been known for several months, its reemergence serves as a cogent reminder that elected U.S. officials, including Gosar, were hellbent on promoting baseless conspiracies.
Notably, the Supreme Court also tossed Burk’s case without comment.