The former attorney general of Arizona, Mark Brnovich, failed to release documents that showed his office’s investigation into the 2020 election did not find evidence of widespread fraud in the state’s most populous county.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Brnovich would not turn over public records that detailed his investigators’ findings. His successor, the Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes, released the records, which showed several reports that debunked rampant claims of election problems in Maricopa county.
Brnovich, a Republican, was running for US Senate in 2022 while his office oversaw an investigation into the 2020 election. He released two reports related to the work – one that showed just one example of a dead person voting and one “interim report” that made nebulous, unfounded criticisms of the county’s elections.
But the unreleased reports show Brnovich’s investigators did not agree with some assertions he made publicly, such as that the county did not follow proper signature verification procedures or that the county had not been responsive to his requests for information.
In an interview with the Guardian on Wednesday, Mayes said her office discovered a bunch of unfulfilled records requests upon taking over in January. She also wanted to find any potential final report for the 2020 investigation, which was not found.
Her office released two additional interim reports and an investigative summary, which are all publicly posted on the...
This story is the second in an ongoing series on the Cost of Fraud, as Open the Books tallies the hidden fees on American tax returns. Click here to read the first story on fraudulent autism billi...