Politicians are famous for bloviating and pandering. Often saying whatever it takes to get an immediate result on the issue de jour with little regard for appearing consistent with past stances. Their previous positions are sometimes the polar opposite of what they are currently saying in the present day. The media helps them with this switcheroo by never pointing out their previous positions. In return for helping the politician cover their tracks, the media is rewarded with access to the politician for interviews, quotes and the juicy "unnamed source" leaks that end up in the sensational, quickly becoming irrelevant, legacy media.
Thankfully, the internet is forever. It is becoming increasingly easy to find past statements from politicians that are at odds with who they are pretending to be in the present moment. One such politician is Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder, in Arizona. He was running for the position in the 2020 election cycle and is appears he won, as he is now the Recorder.
Steven Richer took a position on November 17, 2020, regarding the possibility of a hand count audit of the ballots. His tweet was certainly professional. It was a reasoned position that sounded oh-so bipartisan with a soothing undertone of good old fashioned integrity:
Presumably, based on those statements Stephen Richer would have no problem with the current Forensic Audit taking place in Arizona. Yet, here is the same Stephen Richer in May 2021, singing a completely different tune with the professional tone missing entirely:
The question becomes did Stephen Richer have a change of heart? Or was the first statement made disingenuously?
Perhaps Stephen Richer had it on good authority that any talk of an audit would never make it to the stage where it actually happened. The calls for an audit back when he made his first statement were very popular among a large voting block, namely Trump's base. Stephen Richer was running for a position on the GOP ticket, pandering to that base would be a good move. If Stephen Richer assumed it would never get to an audit AND he knew the audit might uncover fraud of which he was a part, he had no risk when making the initial statement of support. Ahh how the turntables have turn tabled. Every ballot is being hand inspected and with increasing calls to inspect the down ballot races, Stephen Richer has a huge problem with the audit and is signaling to shut it all down immediately.
Regardless as to the actual reason Stephen Richer did a complete 180° on his initial stance, it illustrates perfectly what relying on the "memory hole" looks like.
There are lots of examples of the memory hole, Here's another one found right in Maricopa County, Arizona. Jack Seller, Chairman of Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, released the following statement that included boasting of the level of cooperation and amount of materials the county has delivered to the audit team, highlighted in yellow.
A stance like this appears to be one in support of helping the audit. Yet the media fails to point out the materials were only delivered after piles of lawsuits challenging the subpoena. Futhermore there were multiple stalling tactics enacted in an attempt to keep the audit from even starting, which are also never mentioned.
Moving along to the green highlighted area:
This clearly implies, or rather outright states, Maricopa County already performed not just one, but two "audits". Yet, if we rewind to February 2021 we find the County testifying in court that what is occurring is not performing an Audit of the election.
How could this be, exactly? Well, the Libertarian Party sued the County to get access to the "audit" as it was being performed. Generally, audits allow for 3rd party observers to attend and witness the audit procedures - this allows for complete transparency.
When the Libertarian Party asked to send an Observer to the "audit", they were denied and subsequently filed a lawsuit to demand access. The Maricopa County's defense was that they were not performing and Audit of the election and therefore were not required to allow observers.
To recap: In February when it was happening it was "not an audit of the election", but now it is held up high and heralded as "Two Independent Audits".
Because they are running out of time and have acted with impunity in the past, they have done zero work to cover their tracks. These memory hole reveals are easy to spot.