Twitter blocked an Arizona Republican from posting — but less than an hour after Elon Musk said he was checking 'into it,' the candidate was tweeting again



Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, a Republican who is currently running for Arizona secretary of state, was briefly sidelined on Twitter before being swiftly reinstated less than one hour after Elon Musk, who recently acquired the social media platform, took notice of Finchem's plight.

On Monday afternoon, Finchem posted a screenshot on Truth Social of a notice that said his Twitter account had been temporarily placed in "read-only mode" because he had supposedly violated Twitter's rules.

"Twitter has blocked my account from speaking truth with one week left until the election. They are trying to put their thumb on the scales of this election. Tag Elon Musk and tell him to unban me right now. I am the Secretary of State nominee in a swing state running against the criminal Soros-funded candidate," Finchem wrote.

Finchem later posted another screenshot of a notice that indicated that he had less than 11 hours left until his account would return to normal functionality.

Jenna Ellis tweeted about the platform's move to block Finchem, writing, "@elonmusk this shouldn't happen a week before the election!"

"Looking into it," Musk replied.

\u201c@JennaEllisEsq @RealMarkFinchem Looking into it\u201d
— Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a\ud83e\udd85 (@Jenna Ellis \ud83c\udf4a\ud83e\udd85) 1667253693

Less than an hour later, Finchem was posting on the platform again.

"We are back! Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election. Twitter is much better with you at the helm," Finchem tweeted.

\u201cWe are back! Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election. Twitter is much better with you at the helm. Thank you @MediaRightNews1 @JennaEllisEsq @KariLake @Brick_Suit & others for spreading the word! #AZSOS\u201d
— Mark Finchem #JustFollowTheLaw VoteFinchem.com (@Mark Finchem #JustFollowTheLaw VoteFinchem.com) 1667259618

"I LOVE THE NEW @elonmusk OWNERSHIP," Jenna Ellis tweeted after Finchem's account was freed.

Musk has indicated that he wants Twitter to be a forum for free speech, though he recently said in a note directed toward Twitter advertisers that the platform cannot turn into "a free-for-all hellscape."

He has also said that a "content moderation council" will be established. "Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes," Musk tweeted. "Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail," he wrote in another post.

\u201cTwitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. \n\nNo major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.\u201d
— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1666981135

Judge allows forensic audit of Dominion voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan



A federal judge has ordered that a forensic inspection of Dominion voting machines can take place in Antrim County, Michigan, where 6,000 votes had been incorrectly flipped from President Trump to Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the early tabulation of votes, before being corrected.

The ruling, however, makes no mention of the presidential election. Rather, Judge Kevin Elsenheimer's order is in response to a lawsuit filed by plaintiff William Bailey, a local resident who is challenging the results of a proposal to allow a marijuana retailer in his village. The proposal initially failed before passing during re-tabulation, a change which Bailey alleges didn't count three damaged ballots, according to MLive.com.

Nevertheless, President Trump's legal team indicated they are the ones who have been granted access to inspect the voting machines.

"The big news coming out of Antrim County, Michigan, this morning ... is that a judge actually granted our team access to 22 of the Dominion voting machines for us to conduct a forensic audit," Trump attorney Jenna Ellis told Fox News Sunday morning.

"So our team is going to be able to go in there this morning and we'll be there for about eight hours to conduct that forensic examination and we'll have the results in about 48 hours and that will tell us a lot about these machines," she added.

.@JennaEllisEsq on the Antrim County, Michigan judge that gave Team Trump access to 22 Dominion voting machines to… https://t.co/IstQE81xsC
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022))1607264218.0

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani called the ruling a "big win" on Twitter.

The error, which incorrectly awarded 6,000 votes to Biden which had actually gone for Trump, was originally described as a technical malfunction with the counting equipment. However, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson later clarified that the error was a result of a Republican clerk "accidentally [not updating] the software used to collect voting machine data and report unofficial results." She suggested that the "human error" would have have been detected during a county canvass anyway.

But the president's legal team has been suspicious of that claim and allege that what happened in Antrim County was representative of what happened all over the state and all over the country — the difference being that in Antrim County the bad actors attempting to rig the election were simply caught.

It was not immediately clear why Ellis suggested it was Trump's team that would be conducting the inspection, but it likely had to do with the presence of members of Allied Security Operations Group during the audit. ASOG, a group affiliated with Trump's legal team, was responsible for producing a report used as evidence in Bailey's lawsuit.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Antrim County announced on Saturday that ASOG technicians would conduct the audit in the presence of county clerk Sheryl Guy, county administrator Pete Garwood, county attorney Haider Kazim, three county commissioners, a county IT technician, and a member of the sheriff's department.