A federal grand jury in Arizona has subpoenaed records from a review that Republican lawmakers conducted of the 2020 presidential results and that confirmed President Donald Trump lost.
The subpoena opened a new front in the Trump administration’s expanding hunt for evidence that has never surfaced to support the president’s claims of widespread fraud. The law enforcement steps have alarmed election officials and Democrats who fear that the administration is building an argument for interfering in this year’s midterm elections.
Arizona’s state Senate president, Warren Petersen, said Monday that he had received and complied with the subpoena late last week. “The FBI has the records,” he said on X.
A federal official with knowledge of the subpoena confirmed that the FBI obtained the records. The official asked to remain anonymous to discuss a law enforcement action that had not been made public.
In 2021, the Republican-led state Senate commissioned a review of nearly 2.1 million ballots in Arizona’s Maricopa County. The effort was funded by Trump supporters, conducted by a firm with no election experience and run by an executive who supported Trump’s unsubstantiated fraud claims. Nevertheless, the self-styled audit reaffirmed that Joe Biden won the race, with “no substantial differences” from the officially certified count.
Because of that review, the state Senate retained election records that ordinarily would have been disposed of by now, according to a former staff member familiar with the matter. The person said those records include images of ballots and absentee envelopes, the tally of cast votes, and the server software.
The FBI’s pursuit of rare surviving 2020 election records resembles its search last month of a warehouse storing ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, which Trump also lost in 2020. The FBI received a warrant to seize those records based on previously debunked claims, unsealed court documents show.
The documents said that the Georgia investigation originated with Kurt Olsen, a lawyer advising Trump on election issues in the White House. Olsen has also worked in Arizona and subscribed to allegations of vulnerabilities in the state’s electronic voting systems.
Olsen did not respond to requests for comment. The White House referred questions to the FBI. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump cheered a report from a right-wing website about the subpoena. “Great!!!” he wrote on Truth Social.
The two agencies that share responsibilities for elections in Maricopa County — the board of supervisors and the recorder — both said they have not been subpoenaed.
Election officials have expressed alarm at the Trump administration’s efforts to reexamine an election that has been repeatedly scrutinized and the subject of dozens of lawsuits. Courts and independent reviews found no widespread voter fraud in 2020 in Arizona, Georgia or other swing states.
They said Trump’s relentless claims that the election was rigged undermine public confidence in elections ahead of the midterms. They also said they worry that the unusual law enforcement activity could embolden the administration to take actions that could interfere with how voting is conducted this fall.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) decried the investigation and said in a statement that Petersen was using his position “to legitimize conspiracy theories that Arizona’s own courts and law enforcement have thoroughly debunked.”
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
Voters and election officials are tired of the endless review of an election that has been found to be conducted properly, said Tammy Patrick, the chief executive for programs at the National Association of Election Officials.
“In this moment, who benefits from our democracy being undermined and discredited?” she said. “It is not the American electorate. It’s not the American voter. And it’s not free and fair elections.”
The post FBI obtains voting data from Arizona GOP’s 2020 review that confirmed Trump’s loss appeared first on Washington Post.
