45th President Donald Trump slammed Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the state legislature in a statement released today for what he considers their complete inaction on the findings of the Maricopa County forensic audit.
At the end of September, the full results of the forensic audit into Maricopa County’s 2020 election results, which showed huge discrepancies in mail-in ballots, ballot forms, and duplicate ballots, casting the results of the election into serious doubt. Many called for the state to decertify its 2020 election following the results, though Arizona Senate President Karen Fann had previously ruled out this action, and most elected Republicans passed responsibility to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
President Trump released a statement on Tuesday highlighting Brnovich’s complete inaction on the results. “Whatever happened to the Rigged and Stolen Arizona Presidential Election that is being investigated, or maybe the words should be ‘looked at,’ by Attorney General Mark Brnovich?” Trump argued, asking when the legislature would vote to certify the election.
Brnovich, who is currently running for U.S. Senate, has repeatedly promised meaningful investigations into the audit findings, but has thus far failed to make any clear progress.
“People are very upset in Arizona that it is all taking so long, especially when the findings of the State Senate’s Forensic Audit were so conclusive, not even including the recent revelation of 35,000 fictitious votes in Pima County, and precincts with over 100 percent turnout (how do you like that one?),” President Trump continued, saying that “the people of Arizona are anxiously awaiting the decision” from Brnovich.
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America pic.twitter.com/dEWbaIBilU
— RSBN
(@RSBNetwork) November 23, 2021
Allies of President Trump have also repeatedly called for the decertification of Arizona’s 2020 election results, including Jenna Ellis, a former member of his legal team, who said that decertification would be an “important step to correcting the record,” and Dr. Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona GOP, who declared the ball was firmly in Brnovich’s court after the results of the audit.
While Brnovich issued a letter of spoliation to Maricopa County shortly after the audit, nothing much else has taken place since. The Attorney General, who is running for Senate in Arizona, resorted to posting videos of him playing with nunchucks, instead of launching a full investigation.
As National File reported, 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.