In the days after the 2020 election, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich did something most Republican leaders across the nation didn’t have the courage to do: He publicly refuted Donald Trump’s election lies.
On Nov. 12, 2020, the former federal prosecutor appeared on Fox Business and stated that his office had investigated complaints in connection with Arizona’s election, which had already been called for Joe Biden. “There is no evidence,” Brnovich declared. “There are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results will change.” At the time, The Washington Post noted Brnovich was “the first high-ranking Republican in Arizona to reject the president’s fraud claims in the state.”
Facts apparently don’t matter when you are trying to suck up to Trump — all that matters is blind loyalty.
Sadly, Brnovich’s bravery didn’t last. Documents first shared with the Post by Arizona’s new Attorney General, Kris Mayes, show Brnovich trafficked in election misinformation to help himself politically and hid findings that disproved claims of fraud. It was a glaring example of the corrupting influence that comes with wooing Donald Trump and the supporters who believe his lies.
Brnovich’s flip-flop did not come about overnight. According to Brnovich himself, Trump told him after the 2020 election, “All you gotta do is say the election’s fraudulent, and you will be a superstar,” but the attorney general refused. In late November 2020, he appeared with then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Gov. Doug Ducey to sign the certification of Arizona’s election results declaring Biden the winner.
That should’ve been Brnovich’s legacy: a patriotic public servant who stood up to Trump’s lies and defended our democracy. But that all changed the following year, after Brnovich decided to seek the 2022 GOP nomination against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. To win the Republican primary, Brnovich needed the support of Trump, who had publicly criticized Brnovich for failing to support his election lies.
That’s when Brnovich compromised his integrity in the pursuit of political power. The same Brnovich who had publicly rebuffed Trump’s claims of election fraud, suddenly announced in November 2021 — five months into his Senate campaign and a year after the 2020 election — that he was opening up an investigation into alleged election fraud and misconduct in the state’s Democratic stronghold of Maricopa County. This taxpayer-funded investigation, the Post reports, included a dedicated “command center” and involved all 60 investigators in his office, who “spent more than 10,000 hours examining claims of irregularities, malfeasance and fraud.”
It seems Brnovich hoped that what Trump had told him in 2020 would come true a year later: “All you gotta do is say the election’s fraudulent, and you will be a superstar.”
But when Brnovich’s staff wrote their interim report in March 2022, they didn’t find fraud and misconduct. Did Brnovich tell the public truthfully what his staff found? Nope.
Brnovich clearly knew better all along. But in the pursuit of Trump’s endorsement, he sacrificed his values and integrity.
Instead, in April 2022, Brnovich sent a 12-page letter to Arizona’s Republican Senate President Karen Fann — a Trump-loving election denier who as late as 2022 was still calling the 2020 election to be overturned — claiming that his office had discovered “serious vulnerabilities” in signature verification and ballot transportation procedures, among other possible issues.
But according to the Post, Brnovich “left out edits from his own investigators refuting his assertions.” He also failed to release a fuller “Investigation Summary,” prepared by the assistant chief special agent and dated March 8, 2022, that noted “virtually all allegations [of election misconduct] had been deemed unfounded.” On the issue of signature verification that Brnovich had flagged as suspect, for example, the summary actually stated, “No improper Election Procedures were discovered during the Signature Verification review.”
Why would Brnovich conceal that information? An Associated Press story in April 2022, at the time of Brnovich’s letter to Fann, gives us some insight: “Brnovich is courting Trump’s endorsement for his Senate run, which would give him a significant boost in a field with no clear Republican frontrunner.” Brnovich even appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast where he amplified his misleading claims stating that his investigation had turned up “serious concerns,” adding, “It’s frustrating for all of us, because I think we all know what happened in 2020.” On Bannon’s show, he even falsely claimed that Maricopa County utilized artificial intelligence to verify ballot signatures. In fact, as the Post reported at the time, “every signature is verified by election staff.” But facts apparently don’t matter when you are trying to suck up to Trump — all that matters is blind loyalty. However, Brnovich’s soul-selling still wasn’t enough for Trump. The former president ended up endorsing Blake Masters, who had bluntly proclaimed months before, “I think Trump won in 2020.” Masters — like other Trump-endorsed election deniers in Arizona, such as Kari Lake — won in the August GOP primary. Brnovich finished a distant third. After Brnovich lost, he then did something even more hypocritical. He appeared on 60 Minutes just a week before the 2022 election and slammed the election deniers in Arizona like Lake as “clowns” and “grifters.” He even told host Scott Pelley that the election lies were “horse****. And I’ve been trying to scrape it off my shoes for the last year.” Then Brnovich added something truly revealing: “When you’re an actual prosecutor, when you’re the actual government, there’s a higher obligation.” Brnovich clearly knew better all along. But in the pursuit of Trump’s endorsement, he sacrificed his values and integrity. Thankfully, Brnovich is no longer in office. But in Congress and in states across the country, many equally corrupted Republicans are also using the apparatus of government to undermine the very democracy they have sworn to protect.
