Arizona AG is (finally) turning up the heat on the state's fake electors

The heat is on in Arizona and no one should be feeling it more than our fair state’s famed fake electors.

The Washington Post's Yvonne Wingett Sanchez on Thursday reported that Attorney General Kris Mayes has escalated an investigation into those fine patriots who tried to set aside democracy and steal Arizona’s vote in the 2020 election.

People like state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. Like former state Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward and Tyler Bowyer, a top executive with Turning Point USA who also sits on the Republican National Committee.

Citing two unnamed sources, Wingett Sanchez reported that Mayes assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May.

Good for her.

Mayes is taking fake electors seriously

The Democratic attorney general vowed during last year’s campaign to investigate the Republicans who signed documents claiming to be the state’s electors, authorized by voters to cast Arizona’s 11 electoral votes for Donald Trump — never mind that Joe Biden actually won the state.

Mayes in February hinted that a review had begun though it’s been unclear, until now, whether any serious investigation was under way.

Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, told the Post it’s still early days, with the probe in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued or laws might have been broken.

But at least the AG’s office is taking the outrage of what happened here seriously.

That’s something Mayes’ predecessor, busy as he was chasing Trump’s approval, refused to do.

Brnovich, her predecessor, did not

In March 2021, a Georgia county prosecutor asked a judge to impanel a special grand jury to investigate efforts by Trump to sway the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in that state.

Meanwhile, then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich … didn’t.

This, even though White House and Trump campaign officials also pressured Arizona’s Republican leaders to change the outcome of the election. Three months later, Brnovich would announce that he was running for the Senate.

In May 2022, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced she was broadening her investigation to look into that state’s 16 fake electors who signed bogus documents falsely claiming that Trump won Georgia.

Meanwhile in Arizona, Brnvoich … didn’t.

This, even though Arizona had fake electors, too. Brnovich, after all, was still chasing Trump’s endorsement in a crowded Senate Republican primary.

Willis is expected to announce soon whether Trump and/or his allies will be charged with a state crime for their efforts to overturn the election in Georgia. She’s offered immunity to some of the fake electors.

Focus is likely on AZ GOP's set of electors

It’s unclear whether Mayes’ investigation will delve into Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn Arizona’s vote.

But any such plan likely would start with the fake electors.

Arizona actually had two sets of them.

A group calling itself the “Sovereign of the Great State of Arizona” sent signed and notarized certifications to the National Archives and the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

Another view: GOP is 0-27 in election challenges. Move on

The other group, the one arranged by the Arizona Republican Party in concert with Trump allies, is the one likely to be Mayes’ focus.

They met on Dec. 14, 2020, at state Republican Party headquarters, where they signed paperwork to submit to Congress.“WE THE UNDERSIGNED, being duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Arizona, do hereby certify the following.”

Then they each signed their names, casting Arizona’s votes for a man Arizona didn’t elect.

They tried to steal Arizona's vote

In Arizona, a presidential elector must, by law, follow the will of the voters.

Arizona’s fake electors instead followed the will of Trump and his attorney, John Eastman, who schemed up the plot to overthrow a democratically elected president.

In a two-page memo, Eastman detailed his step-by-step plan for how Arizona and six other states would submit “dual” sets of electors, allowing then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election or at least throw it to Congress, where Republicans could then declare Trump the winner.

Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin, an attorney who represented Ward in her efforts to keep Jan. 6 House investigators from accessing her cellphone records, said in a court filing last year that the Trump electors were merely a backup plan, in the event that lawsuits challenging Arizona’s election were successful.

Yeah, but then there is that Eastman memo, which suggests something far more troubling.

Simply put, those fake electors tried to steal Arizona’s vote.

There should be a penalty for that.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fake electors finally feel pressure from Arizona's attorney general