If you’re like me, you’ve been growing a bit impatient waiting on prosecutors in states outside of Georgia to probe former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election scheme with the same doggedness as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
It continues to strike me as odd that prosecutors in other states where Trump’s illiberal minions attempted similar antidemocratic schemes to keep him in office seem to be standing by, waiting to see what Willis’ yearslong criminal probe yields.
After all, if there’s one thing we know about prosecutors, it’s that they’re reluctant to sniff around, right? (rolls eyes)
But don’t fret quite yet. All hope may not be lost. In an interview with The Guardian published Wednesday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, confirmed her office’s plans to investigate “the fake electors” who signed documents falsely declaring Trump the winner of the state’s electoral votes.
“We are planning to reach out to federal officials on that matter,” Mayes said. “Beyond that, I’m not going to comment on it.”
Any minute now, I suppose.
It was a rather lawyerly statement from Arizona’s top prosecutor, but it aligned with her previous remarks about the need to investigate the fake electors scheme. And that might just be enough to engender some hope that the most fervent election deniers in Arizona may be held accountable.
In an interview with a local radio show in December, Mayes said of the fake electors scheme, “I don’t think that’s the kind of thing that you can allow to go unreviewed and uninvestigated.” She cited her predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, and his lack of action on the matter as one reason for investigating the scheme.
Mayes, a former Republican who became a Democrat in 2019, has gradually taken steps to reverse Brnovich’s most harmful actions related to elections since taking office in January.
Earlier this year, she announced plans to “reprioritize” a unit he established to investigate purported voter fraud, changing its focus to protecting voting rights. And last week, as my MSNBC colleague Steve Benen explained, Mayes unveiled details of a report Brnovich kept hidden that found Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud were without merit.
Probing Arizona’s fake electors — a group that includes the state’s former GOP chair — would be the clearest evidence yet that Mayes is pursuing justice in earnest.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.