As Arizona Republicans consider the field of candidates seeking to replace Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly, many are realizing that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has been a tenuous ally of election integrity efforts, and has only begrudgingly helped Republicans and President Donald Trump since election day of 2020.
While outsider candidates Blake Masters and Jim Lamon have made demands for election integrity key parts of their campaigns, Mark Brnovich has been in a position to legally push for election integrity long before launching his campaign. Instead, on November 4, after Fox News called Arizona early in the night – provoking skepticism among many – Brnovich defended the state’s election, appearing on television to claim that election malfeasance could not possibly have happened in his state.
When many Americans and Arizonans were concerned about the bombshells presented in SharpieGate, which National File exposed via leaked emails as a bizarre demand that voters who cast ballots on election day use sharpie markers to fill out ballots, despite knowing that they caused issues with ballots, Brnovich declared there was no way this could have an impact on the election. Meanwhile, early results from the Arizona Audit suggest that this could have resulted in damaged ballots, which were then replicated, in some cases, dozens of times without proper procedures being followed.
The next day, while President Trump was claiming victory in Arizona and in the process of contesting the election, Brnovich again spoke to the media and assured them of Maricopa County’s integrity, something that has since come into question from virtually all conservative publications. Brnovich declared that he agreed with “what the election officials have said” and told the press that he would “take them at their word” when it came to their claims that no fraud happened in 2020. He denied any possibility of any “conspiracy” to steal the 2020 election, claiming that any such efforts would somehow hurt Joe Biden and the Democrats “equally.”
Because of the inaction of Brnovich – the top law enforcement official in the state – the Trump campaign had to become directly involved, taking legal action without help from Brnovich. Despite the Trump campaign seeking redress for what happened, Brnovich again spoke to the media and reaffirmed his faith in the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. He had already accepted Biden’s so-called victory in the state, after all.
At this point, Brnovich had largely spoken to local media and less-viewed cable networks. This would change when he was interviewed by the Washington Post, the anti-Trump publication connected to left wing billionaire Jeff Bezos. In this interview, Brnovich explicitly denied the possibility that the election was stolen from President Trump, and despite the evidence raised by the Trump campaign and National File, falsely told the Post that “based on what we know happened in the past, there is no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election result was changed.”
Later in November, while President Trump was being largely abandoned by the Republican Party and its institutions, Brnovich joined them: He joined far-left Secretary of State Katie Hobbes and anti-Trump Gov. Doug Ducey to sign the certification of Arizona’s election, gifting the state’s 11 electoral votes to Joe Biden.
While many Republicans became suddenly invested in the election integrity fight in December of 2020, after President Trump’s path to victory became more arduous than ever, Brnovich remained positioned firmly on his fence. On December 17, he joined the historic lawsuit that saw 19 states sue over the election results and how the election was handled, but rather than the fire breathing responses offered by other state attorneys general, Brnovich simply filed a brief asserting the importance of election integrity. At this point, Brnovich was facing pressure from President Trump, the Arizona Republican Party, and media outlets like National File to take a stand, and arguably made the bare minimum effort required to do so.
While it appears Brnovich’s bare minimum efforts have been made in a ploy to convince Arizona Republicans he is a viable candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2022, President Trump apparently disagrees. In May of this year, he described Brnovich as “lackluster” and noted that he “is nowhere to be found” on the subject of voter fraud, especially when it comes to the Arizona Audit.
Again, Brnovich has remained as neutral on the audit. While he has appeared on cable news to support the Senate’s authority to conduct the audit, he has failed to support the audit outright or take any action from his powerful position to demand election integrity. When the Biden regime was threatening legal action against Arizona, he wrote a strongly-worded letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting they do not interfere.
When the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors refused to comply with a legal subpoena, saying they have no intention to supply critical materials to the Arizona Senate that would determine the level of malfeasance that occurred in the state last year, he again sent a strongly worded letter. This time, the top official threatened to strip a small amount of funding if Maricopa County refused to comply. At press, it appears Maricopa County is still refusing to comply.
It now appears that despite his “lackluster” performance over the last year, Brnovich is seeking to cast himself as a champion of election integrity in the upcoming election for U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, his opponent Blake Masters has made election integrity a key part of his campaign since its launch, and has been demanding answers on the credible reports of widespread voter fraud since at least November 5, 2020, when Brnovich was giving his full support to election officials and denying the possibility of voter fraud as a “conspiracy theory.”
“Reports of dead people voting in Milwaukee and Detroit, should they be investigated?” Wrote Masters on Twitter, “No, the media just reports on Qanon.”
“Meanwhile any discussion of voter fraud is censored, disproven-in-advance by ‘experts’ and ‘science,’” Masters added. “Vote integrity must be defended and transparent.”
Reports of dead people voting in Milwaukee and Detroit, should they be investigated? No, the media just reports about Qanon.
Meanwhile any discussion of voter fraud is censored, disproven-in-advance by ‘experts’ and ‘science’
Vote integrity must be defended and transparent. pic.twitter.com/2L871FPUre
— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) November 5, 2020