The Arizona Attorney General's Office concluded months ago there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election results in Maricopa County ― but the state's top prosecutor sat on the information and suppressed mitigating details, newly released records show.
An investigative report and two internal memos from 2022 indicate then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich was aware his investigators "did not uncover any criminality or fraud" in the 2020 election weeks before Brnovich reported the county's election system was vulnerable and the process for verification and handling of early ballots was broken.
The three documents were made public Wednesday by newly elected Attorney General Kris Mayes, who described them as "deeply unsettling and unacceptable."
Mayes told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday the public was misled and that never should have happened.
"First and foremost, the people of Arizona had a right to know this before the 2022 election," she said. "This office has a solemn duty to be transparent and honest with the people of Arizona."
The office could have put an end to many conspiracies surrounding the 2020 election results more than a year ago. Instead, Brnovich fueled concerns about systemwide problems. Mayes said resources could have been spent elsewhere protecting the people of Arizona.
"At some point, nearly every single agent in the office was pulled into investigating the 2020 election," Mayes said.
An earlier release of the documents could have answered continued questions from Arizona Senate Republicans, who had launched an election review over concerns whether Joe Biden was rightly elected president. It also could have debunked allegations by a host of Arizona candidates running in 2022 on claims of election irregularities.
Of particular concern to Mayes was the initial report released publicly by Brnovich in April 2022 suggesting the county's election system could not be completely trusted.
According to one of the internal memos, investigators' annotations on the initial report showed their concerns with some of Brnovich's major claims.
"Most of the investigators' comments refute the main points of the report," Mayes said. "It is unsettling to learn those findings were not released in that report."
Brnovich, a Republican, did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Mayes, a Democrat, stopped short of saying whether there was any action or recourse the office could take against Brnovich.
"The most important thing now is getting this information out," she said, promising more documents would be forthcoming, including a 500-page attachment to the reports that is still being reviewed.
Newly released reports undermine Brnovich's claims
Documents released Wednesday show the Attorney General's Office had summarized its findings in March 2022, a month before Brnovich released the initial report.
A 24-page report on the investigation by an assistant chief special agent of the criminal division detailed an exhaustive process that examined 638 separate complaints of alleged fraud, including those made by elected officials, that prompted 438 investigations and took more than 10,000 hours to complete.
The report concluded, in case after case, that the allegations were unfounded.
Brnovich in April 2022:Report on election in Maricopa County questions procedures, doesn't allege wrongdoing
Brnovich said in April 2022 the initial investigation "revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona." Brnovich, who was running in a competitive GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, maintained that his office would continue its probe.
The new documents show that Brnovich's investigators sought to edit the interim report and temper conclusions to reflect the actual findings. Brnovich did not include them in his report.
For instance, when Brnovich said the election system was broken, an investigator wrote in a note that the Maricopa County Recorder's Office followed procedures. "Investigators examined the policy and procedures followed by the MCRO relative to signature verification ... we did not uncover any criminality or fraud having beencommitted in this area during the 2020 general election," the note said.
Where Brnovich sought to call into question the signature verification of early ballots, investigators suggested changing the report to include language about the steps county elections officials took to train workers. "Investigators learned that the MCRO hired additional staff to work on signature verification due to the sheer volume of ballots to be processed," the note said.
Where Brnovich suggested the signature review process was not as vigorous as it was in 2018, an investigator wrote, "Investigators did not compare the 2020 general election ballot rejection rate to any election in 2018."
Where Brnovich said there were no uniform procedures in place to ensure ballot procedures were being processed correctly in all counties, an investigator wrote the office "has not conducted a comparativeanalysis of signature verification processes for other counties."
And where Brnovich wrote that Maricopa County election officials were at times combative and litigious, an investigator wrote of the Maricopa County Recorder's Office: "It is the collective opinion ... based upon our experiences ― that MCRO, who was represented by counsel, was cooperative and responsive to our requests in light of the fact they did not have the staffing numbers they did during the 2020 general election and the office was running elections for various other governing bodies."
County officials were notified by Mayes' office that they no longer were under investigation.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said he was glad that investigators recognized the office's cooperation.
"It’s nice to know that somebody in the office — whoever wrote the comments in 'track changes' that were then deleted — had a problem with just flat lying about our level of cooperation," Richer told The Republic.
Richer said he is still "very confused" as to how the interim report concluded his office was uncooperative. He also said he had never heard of a prosecutor's office filing an interim report on an ongoing investigation.
"We cooperated at all stages," he said. "We spent countless hours answering the emails of their investigators, gathering information, inviting them to our facilities, showing them our technology infrastructure, walking them through or processes."
Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, issued a statement that said in part, "I would like our Maricopa County residents to know that I am absolutely disgusted by the revelations that former Attorney General Mark Brnovich failed to do his job as a public servant representing the highest law enforcement elected position in the state. He and his leadership team concealed a report that proved the November 2020 election was conducted fairly, lawfully, and accurately.
"Not only did he ignore his own investigators in issuing a different, 'interim report,' he falsely suggested wrongdoing by Maricopa County, never correcting the record and blatantly never sharing the team’s final report with the public. This was a gross misuse of his elected office and an appalling waste of taxpayer dollars, as well as a waste of the time and effort of professional investigators."
The Republic for months sought copies of a final report and filed multiple public records requests for material related to the findings, including draft reports. Brnovich's office said in December there were no records available.
"No final report was issued, therefore there are no responsive documents to the attached request," his office said in a Dec. 2 email. It ignored follow-up requests.
Attorney general's investigation came at Senate's request
Brnovich launched the investigation after the Arizona Senate's discredited review of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County's 2020 election to determine if the election had been rigged against former President Donald Trump.
Former Senate President Karen Fann, who authorized the so-called "audit," asked Brnovich to investigate the findings of its lead audit contractor, Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based cybersecurity firm, which has since gone out of business.
Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors were paid millions by nonprofits set up by Trump allies and prominent figures in the “Stop the Steal” movement.
Cyber Ninjas' CEO Doug Logan in a September 2021 report to the Senate confirmed the ballot review showed Trump lost the election. But his report minimized the ballot counts and instead raised questions about the county's election process and voter integrity that were later repudiated by election officials.
In the second internal memo released Wednesday ― a Sept. 19, 2022, summary of the election investigation ― Chief Special Agent Reginald Grigsby again reported the Attorney General's Office had found no fraud. And again, Brnovich did not make the report public.
Attorney general's investigators interviewed lawmakers such as then-state Rep. Mark Finchem and state Sens. Sonny Borelli and Wendy Rogers, all of whom had publicly claimed widespread fraud and election irregularities. None provided any actual evidence to investigators.
"While a significant majority of the complaints alleged irregularities with the election process, no evidence of election fraud, manipulation of the election process, or any instances of organized/coordinated fraud was provided by any of the complaining parties," Grigsby wrote.
Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter for The Republic. Reach him at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8694. Follow him on Twitter @robertanglen.
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