Far-right wants to impeach Kris Mayes for enforcing election law in Cochise County

Impeachment fever has reached Arizona as the Maricopa County Republican Party brain trust on Tuesday called for the ouster of Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes.

The party’s hard-right leaders are furious that a pair of Republican Cochise County supervisors have been indicted on charges that they interfered with the 2022 election.

Apparently, it’s now a “grotesque abuse of office” to require county supervisors to follow state law — the one that says they must certify election results within 20 days of an election.

Look for party hardliners to get plenty of support from the Arizona Legislature’s far-right contingent, which is hyperventilating about the “disgusting weaponization” of the AG’s Office.

Hoffman puts impeachment on the table

So much so, in fact, that they plan to embark upon a little weaponization of their own.

“You can bet your a-- that the @AZFreedomCaucus will be looking at every possible option to make weaponizing our state’s government and abusing Executive power as painful as humanly possible,” Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek and Freedom Caucus chairman, announced on social media shortly after last week’s indictments.

“This includes legal action, budget, O&I (oversight and investigation), statutory, and everything else up to and including impeachment.”

Just coincidentally (I’m sure), Hoffman is under investigation by Mayes for his role in the fake elector scheme to overturn Arizona’s 2020 presidential election results. Nevada on Monday joined Michigan and Georgia in indicting its fake electors.

Judd and Crosby, meanwhile, are facing the possibility of prison (though more likely a fine) and a hefty legal tab, given that taxpayers won’t fund their leaders’ criminal defense.

No doubt, Kari Lake and the MAGA crowd — the people who urged the supervisors to refuse to certify even if it meant going to jail — will open their wallets to help.

Supervisors ignored the law in protest

Judd and Crosby are in hot water for refusing to certify the county’s 2022 election results by Nov. 28, 2022, having bought into a discredited MAGA conspiracy theory that the tabulation equipment was suspect.

Judd told The New York Times, however, that the decision not to certify was a protest of election problems in Maricopa County.

A protest that, had it stood, could have disenfranchised conservative Cochise County’s 47,000 voters and resulted in the defeat of both Republican Rep. Juan Cisocmani and state Superintendent Tom Horne.

This is what happens: When suckers ignore election law

Sure, that makes sense.

Ultimately, the supervisors approved the election canvass in early December, after being ordered to do so by a judge.

ARS 16-642, after all, says county supervisors “shall” certify the election within 20 days of the vote — meaning by Nov. 28.

So, then, it's war against Mayes?

They were repeatedly advised of that by Republican Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre.

Which matters not at all to the hard right, which is now racing to decry the “illegitimate political prosecution of the brave elected officials of Cochise County.”

“Kris Mayes’ prosecution of Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby is an act of political prosecution common in dictatorships or communist countries,” the Maricopa County Republican Committee’s executive board howled.

“The weaponization of government might fly in the filthy swamp of Washington DC, but only over our dead bodies will the Democratic Fascists currently occupying Arizona’s executive branch bring that corruption to our state,” Hoffman huffed.

So it’s war then. Again.

Or still.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Impeach Kris Mayes for enforcing election law? The far-right says yes