The curious case of Staci Burk: ‘Ballots and planes’

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include information provided by Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend after initial publication. Tim Foley, the founder of Arizona Border Recon, delivered remarks at the event following an introduction by White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who called him “one of those who have stood watch and truly deserve the titles ‘brave and courageous.’” Jim Penrose, a former National Security Agency official who was working alongside retired Lt. General Michael Flynn to overturn the election, had a more colorful descriptor during a phone conversation with Burk several weeks later: “John Shattuck’s an info-war operator, as far as I can tell.” Far-right conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel described Shattuck in an adulatory introduction for a segment promoting Arizona Border Recon as someone who “get a lot of stuff done in the cover of darkness.” Through Shattuck, Burk spoke with Shelby Busch and Steve Robinson — an Arizona couple who were collecting information to aid Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — Trump’s personal lawyers, in their quest for evidence to persuade lawmakers to nullify the election results in the battleground states. “What bothers me about Kelly Townsend having secret conversations with Koch — to me, when all that stuff went down, she was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’” Burk said. “We interviewed Koch at length, and he said he fabricated everything,” Jim Penrose, a former National Security Agency official who investigated the leads for Powell, told Burk on Christmas Day, 2020. “Yes, I’m saying the entire thing is fabricated,” he said “It’s all bulls***.” When pressed by Burk, who had filed a petition in state court that included details of the purported confession, Penrose said, “Scott Koch and Shawn Wilson have completely denied it all and said that they were trying to… especially Koch said he was trying to look tough in front of you.” Meanwhile, Wilson suggested to Burk that Koch’s purported confession was a ruse to gather intelligence on Trump’s militant supporters — a notion that infuriated Trickovic and Tolley.