Arizona Senate President Refers Top Election Officials to DOJ After They Asked About Voter Privacy

Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen wants the Department of Justice to investigate Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Their alleged crime? Asking whether he gave the FBI confidential voter information that state law requires be kept secret.

This is what accountability looks like in reverse.

The dispute centers on a federal subpoena Petersen received in March demanding records from the Senate's 2021 partisan review of the 2020 election -- the so-called "audit" conducted by the now-defunct Cyber Ninjas conspiracy theory outfit. That subpoena came shortly after former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited Arizona to spread election fraud lies while promoting Republican legislation that would strip voting rights from millions of Americans.

Petersen complied with the subpoena and handed over documents to the FBI. But Mayes, whose office represents Secretary of State Fontes, sent Petersen a letter asking a reasonable question: Did those documents include Maricopa County voter registration records containing information about participants in Arizona's address confidentiality program and other voter data that state law says is "not generally available for public inspection"?

She requested a reply by April 6. Instead, Petersen referred both officials to the DOJ for "obstruction of justice and tampering with a witness."

"It is disturbing to see their resistance to an election integrity investigation," Petersen wrote on social media, using the euphemism election deniers prefer for their ongoing attempts to undermine confidence in American democracy.

There is no election integrity investigation. There is a Trump administration demanding voter data from states and threatening those who refuse to comply. Arizona is one of several states fighting back against these demands, which the DOJ recently admitted it was sharing with the Department of Homeland Security to hunt for alleged noncitizens on voter rolls -- despite previously claiming it had no such plans.

The Trump administration has sued Arizona and other states to force them to hand over this data. Privacy advocates, including some within the DOJ itself, have raised alarms about the collection effort.

Petersen commissioned a legal opinion from the Senate's private attorneys at Snell & Wilmer, which concluded that Mayes and Fontes acted inappropriately by sending their letter. The opinion claims that complying with the subpoena was not optional and that the attorney general's advice "should not be relied upon."

But here is what makes this especially brazen: Petersen is running for attorney general this year. If he wins the Republican primary in July, he will face Mayes in the general election. He is asking the federal government to investigate his likely opponent for the crime of asking whether he protected voter privacy as required by state law.

Mayes did not mince words in her response.

"After wasting taxpayer dollars on the laughable Cyber Ninja's audit, Petersen again wasted Arizona's taxpayer dollar on a legal opinion that painstakingly tries to justify his failure to uphold Arizona's constitutional right to protect its voters' privacy," she said. "This is yet another example of Petersen desperately seeking favor from a president who cannot accept that he lost his re-election in 2020 fair and square."

Fontes said his office still does not know what information the Senate handed over to the Trump administration.

"Our Office asked for reassurance that Arizona voters' Drivers Licenses and Tribal ID information were not exposed, but in communication with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, it is still unclear what personal identifying data was made available to the Arizona State Senate and subsequently the federal government," Fontes said.

Most of the drives given to the FBI are attributed to CyFir, one of the subcontractors hired by Cyber Ninjas. CyFir's CEO, Ben Cotton, had to walk back bombastic claims he made during the election review. At one point, he took data from the "audit" to a "lab" in Montana -- a detail that should inspire exactly zero confidence in the chain of custody for sensitive voter information.

Mayes and Fontes also sent letters to county recorders asking them to withhold voter data from the FBI. Petersen and his attorneys characterized this as improper interference with a federal investigation.

But protecting voter privacy is not obstruction. It is the job of the secretary of state and attorney general. Arizona law explicitly protects certain voter information from public disclosure, including data that could endanger victims of domestic violence enrolled in the address confidentiality program.

Fontes made clear that intimidation tactics will not stop his office from doing its job.

"While Arizona State Senator Petersen continues to prioritize Donald Trump's wishes over the safety and security of Arizona's voters, I can confidently affirm that these methods of intimidation will not stop our work," he said.

This is the playbook: Comply with Trump administration demands for voter data, then accuse anyone who asks questions about legal compliance of obstructing justice. Petersen was a driving force behind the Cyber Ninjas audit in 2021, which found no evidence of fraud and actually increased Joe Biden's margin of victory. He has never stopped trying to undermine confidence in Arizona elections.

Now he wants to be the state's top law enforcement officer. And his first act as a candidate is to weaponize the Justice Department against officials who asked whether he followed state privacy law.

Arizona voters will not be fooled.