A federal grand jury subpoenaed Arizona’s legislature for records related the state senate’s widely criticized review of the 2020 election, the state senate president said on Monday, in what appears to be the latest part of the Trump administration’s efforts to spread false claims about the 2020 election and voting in the United States.
Warren Petersen, the president of the Arizona state senate, confirmed on X on Monday the legislature had received a subpoena related to records of its review of the election results in Maricopa county, the most populous in the state. He added that “the FBI has the records”.
Peterson’s comment came after Donald Trump posted an article from the Trump-friendly outlet Just the News about the subpoena and said: “Great!!!”
It is not immediately clear what information was sought in the subpoena and what was turned over. “President Petersen does not have anything to add outside of his X post at this time,” said Kim Quintero, a Petersen spokesperson.
The FBI did not return a request for comment.
Spokespeople for Maricopa county and the Maricopa county recorder’s office, which administers elections, said they had not received a subpoena as of Monday morning.
The effort comes after the FBI raided the election office in Fulton county, Georgia in January as part of an investigation into the 2020 election results. Specious claims about voting in the state were used to justify that search warrant affidavit. Kurt Olsen and Clay Parikh, who both assisted with Kari Lake’s efforts to overturn the 2022 governor’s race in Arizona, both assisted the Trump administration with the Fulton county effort.
In 2021, Republicans who controlled the Arizona state senate used a private firm, called Cyber Ninjas, to review the 2020 election results in Maricopa county. The review included a hand count of all 2.1m ballots cast in the state, examining ballot paper, and election equipment. Cyber Ninjas had no prior experience in elections and its methodology was widely criticized as the audit was taking place. The effort received more than $5.7m in outside funding, including support from prominent election deniers Patrick Byrne and Michael Flynn.
Ultimately, the review affirmed Joe Biden’s win in Maricopa county and a hand recount actually found a net gain of votes for Biden. Cyber Ninjas still put forth a number of allegations about suspicious activities in 2020 that the county and the attorney general’s office debunked.
Kris Mayes, a Democrat who was elected attorney general in 2022, said the 2020 election results in Arizona were “certified, litigated, and affirmed”.
“Warren Petersen knows all of this. He has known it for years. He spread false stories of election fraud in 2020, and he remains an unrepentant election denier, using his platform as senate president to legitimize conspiracy theories that Arizona’s own courts and law enforcement have thoroughly debunked,” she said in a statement.
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry. It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies,” she added.
