Did former President Donald Trump get subpoenas for routers associated with Arizona's voting-counting machines and does that pave the way for Trump to be reinstated as president? No, that's not true: While Arizona's senate is attempting to obtain Maricopa County's routers, Trump is not directly involved in that. If the routers are handed over, and contain evidence of fraud, both of which appeared questionable at the time of writing, there is no process through which this could result in Trump's return to the White House.
The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made-up stories that are clearly marked as satire when users actually click them.
The story originated in an article published by Daily World Update on August 2, 2021 titled "Trump Gets Subpoenas For Arizona Routers, Paving The Way To Reinstatement" (archived here) which opened:
Donald Trump knows where all the information about 2020 is hidden. At CPAC 2021, he made the announcement that patriotic Americans knew all along. The information is out there, and it's hidden. It's hidden in the routers. All of the information for the Maricopa county elections are on the routers. Finally we have answers.
Cyber Ninjas, the company charged with auditing the Maricopa county, Arizona election results can now cut through the red tape and go directly to the source. They knew it was there, the trail was evident. But now, all they have to do is subpoena the routers, and the mystery of the election is solved and reinstatement is nigh.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Trump Gets Subpoenas For Arizona Routers, Paving The Way To Reinstatement
President Donald Trump knows that every bit of the Maricopa county election data is on routers, and he will get it.
The Arizona senate has subpoenaed a list of election-related materials, including computer routers, as part of the ongoing audit of Maricopa County's voting in the November 2020 presidential election. The county has resisted handing over the routers, citing public safety and privacy concerns over non-election materials on the servers, and a court battle could be looming. The county had until the afternoon of August 2, 2021, to file a challenge.
Still, the audit is just for one county in one of the states that gave Biden its electoral votes. The subtraction of those electors from Biden's list -- which is not believed constitutionally supported -- would not give Trump the majority.
Lead Stories previously debunked the claim that Joe Biden be legally ousted from the White House and Donald Trump returned to the presidency before the next election if fraud were found to have put Biden there:
A sitting U.S. president can only be removed through impeachment under Section 4 of Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, death or a declaration of disability as provided by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. There is no legal scenario where Trump would become president again if Biden is removed, according to a constitutional law scholar. The "quo warranto" process that some Trump supporters claim could be used to replace Biden with Trump is not applicable, the scholar told Lead Stories.
DailyWorldUpdate.us is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. They mostly publish made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
When fact checkers point this out to the people liking and sharing these copycat stories some of them get mad at the fact checkers instead of directing their anger at the foreign spammers or the liberal satire writers. Others send a polite "thank you" note, which is much appreciated.
