Supervisors call out AG Mark Brnovich’s dishonesty

I wonder if Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich thought that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, controlled by Republicans, or that County Recorder Stephen Richer, also a Republican, would simply go along with him trying to use the Big Lie about election fraud to power his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

If so, it was a bad call.

A very bad call.

On Wednesday, the county sent Brnovich a letter pointing out the many flaws and misrepresentations in the attorney general’s report on the county elections. In essence, calling him a liar.

Or, as the letter more politely said, “When election integrity is challenged, we have a collective responsibility to investigate and report our conclusions thoroughly and honestly. We have. You have not.”

The letter goes into great detail taking apart any of the phony issues Brnovich brought up in his report and then tried to leverage into support (or at least some media attention) for his Senate campaign.

The county was having none of it. The board’s letter to Brnovich thoroughly defends the election’s integrity while pointing out his lack of it.

You should read it.

“Your use of an ‘interim report’ to score cheap political points is beneath your office. You spread misinformation and seed doubt, which had led to renewed threats and harassment of County election staff,” the letter says.

It adds, “One cannot play politics with the instruments of the law. One cannot play politics with prosecutorial power.”

Actually, one can.

We have seen it before. We’ve had a disbarred county prosecutor do that. We’ve had a disgraced former sheriff, who needed a presidential pardon, do that.

It’s puzzling that Brnovich would want to follow their lead.

He didn’t always.

Shortly after the 2020 presidential election Brnovich appeared on Fox Business, where he was asked about unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in Arizona.

He said at the time, “If indeed there was some great conspiracy” to steal votes from fellow Republicans, “it apparently didn’t work.”

Brnovich continued, “That’s the reality. There is no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results will change.”

Between then and now Brnovich seems to have lost touch with that reality.

Blind ambition can do that to a person.

The county’s letter, signed by all of the supervisors and County Recorder Stephen Richer, says, “We should not

have to remind you of your oaths. Yet here we are. You are not just an ordinary politician. You are the state’s top prosecutor and you are held to a different standard.”

They ask Brnovich, “Will you help build public confidence? Or will you continue to undermine it?”

At this point, I believe that’s a rhetorical question.

Sadly, county supervisors know the answer. And they’re determined to make sure Brnovich doesn’t get away with it.

Or, as the board’s Chairman Bill Gates put it, “I want to be clear to the attorney general: He is not going to campaign off the backs of the dedicated employees of Maricopa County.”