Update (3/10/22): The Daily Beast reported that Christina Bobb is leaving OAN and in discussions with the twice-impeached former president to possibly work for him “on multiple fronts, including legal work and media appearances.”
OAN host Christina Bobb’s desperate efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election show no signs of abating. Bobb continues to use her OAN platform to attempt to bring an Arizona-style “audit” to other states by pressuring what she calls “cowardly” Republicans to toe the line, while also spreading new, unsubstantiated suggestions of fraud.
Meanwhile, recent reporting suggests that Bobb was apparently involved in yet another attempt by allies of then-President Donald Trump to keep the presidency despite losing the 2020 election. Politico reported this month that Bobb’s name appeared in metadata as the creator of a document containing a draft executive order directing the Pentagon to seize voting machines.
Bobb did not comment to Politico on the appearance of her name, but her alleged involvement with this attempt to subvert democracy certainly fits a pattern. Bobb worked with fellow Trump sycophant Rudy Giuliani to submit so-called “alternate slates” of Electoral College votes for Trump and soon became a major supporter and funder of election “audits,” heavily promoting her nonprofit on OAN to raise money. And nearly 16 months after the election, she's not slowing down.
Bobb’s pro-audit pressure campaign against Republicans
Bobb has declared that Arizona “set the standard for audits” and is pushing for similar processes in states with GOP-controlled legislatures. But other states haven't progressed with an “audit” at the same pace as Arizona, leading the OAN host to criticize Republicans who won’t follow through and to interview candidates who share her feverish commitment.
During an appearance on OAN’s Real America in January, Bobb told host Dan Ball that “the Republicans in Wisconsin are a bit cowardly” and criticized Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for “tap dancing around the issue” and “blocking efforts to really get at election integrity.” In October, Vos had told Bobb in an interview that he wanted to “make sure that the Democrats don’t have an opportunity to put their thumb on the scale and push it in the wrong direction,” to which Bobb had replied, “I look forward to more subpoenas coming out and seeing your process unfold.”
Bobb’s pressure campaign isn’t a one-person effort; she also interviews candidates who share her opinions. On January 27, OAN aired a Bobb interview with Michigan Senate candidate Terence Mekoski, in which she focused on so-called “election integrity.” Mekoski said “everybody I talk to wants a full forensic audit” but “our RINOs [Republicans in name only] in Michigan here are trying to put this on the backburner.” Bobb seemingly concurred, saying the “audit” is “something the Republican base has strongly supported,” and asked Mekoski about supposed “grassroot movements” in Michigan “to educate the public about what happened in 2020.”
On February 8, Bobb did an interview with Abe Hamadeh, a Republican candidate for Arizona attorney general, during which he talked about his “first-hand experience” with the potential for fraud in overseas voting. Nobody alleged any actual fraud in the interview, but Hamadeh nonetheless suggested he knew how easy it is to commit election fraud and promised that, if elected, “we’re going to go on offense” and “take matters into our own hands,” away from “weak-kneed Republicans.”
Bobb continued spreading wild claims about the 2020 election
In addition to attempting to pressure Republicans into election audits, Bobb continued to highlight the latest unsupported claims of election fraud.
On the January 29 edition of Weekly Briefing, Bobb interviewed Mike Roman, an “election day operations expert” who was at the Trump allies' “command center” at the Willard hotel in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Roman alleged that there were “30 to 35 [liberal] organizations that had direct access to … the Pennsylvania voter file,” whereas he could not find any conservative groups that had the same access. Although outside groups did not actually have this level of access according to state election officials, Roman concluded that Democrats may have had a “comparative advantage” over Republicans, “if they were able to add people directly to the voter rolls … when we had to run legitimate voter registration operations.” Bobb warned that this is a problem “that’s coming out all over the country,” and falsely alleged, per Roman’s claims, that “there are more votes than voters in Pennsylvania.”
On February 7, Bobb spoke with a pro-audit group that surveyed 206 homes in York County, Pennsylvania. CEO Toni Shuppe claimed the responses showed that 45% of the households had “some type of election anomaly on record,” giving space for Bobb and Shuppe to discuss alleged “phantom voters.” Even though they showed no actual evidence of voter fraud, Shuppe called her findings “super concerning” and suggested that the number of invalid votes in Pennsylvania could be “double the margin of victory.”
Bobb has also been following new allegations of 2020 election improprieties in Wisconsin. She claimed that “about 30% of the margin of victory could have come from ineligible voters,” since Wisconsin “suffers from same-day voter registration” and third-party access to voter rolls. Bobb later appeared on OAN’s Real America, calculating along with host Dan Ball that 25,000 votes in Wisconsin should be thrown out, due to various illegalities. “That right there switches the state,” said Ball. “That would overturn Wisconsin.”