FBI eyes Arizona Senate audit of 2020 Maricopa County election
People drop off their mail ballots for the U.S. presidential election at a ballot box in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 18, 2020.
Robyn Beck | Afp | Getty Images
A federal grand jury has issued a subpoena for audit records of the Arizona state Senate’s 2020 election results in Maricopa County, the Senate president said Monday. The county is a Democratic stronghold that President Donald Trump lost that year, contributing to the state’s loss to former President Joe Biden.
“The FBI has the records,” Republican Senate President Warren Petersen wrote. Post on social media siteHe said he received a subpoena for those records last week and complied with it.
The issuance of the subpoena reveals that the Justice Department has expanded its investigation into the 2020 election results and mostly debunked claims that Trump and his supporters were cheated out of victory due to widespread ballot fraud that year.
The subpoena comes nearly five weeks after the FBI raided an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia and seized ballots from the 2020 election.
Like Maricopa County, Fulton County was the focus of Trump’s claims that his 2020 victory was fraudulent.
Trump promoted a report about the subpoena by right-wing media site Just the News.
“Great!!!” Trump wrote at Truth Social. “As the voting investigation expands, the FBI is secretly seizing election records from Arizona’s largest county.”
Biden’s victory in Arizona and Georgia helped him gain the upper hand over Trump in the Electoral College, which determines the winner of the presidential contests.
CNBC requested comment on the subpoena from the Department of Justice.
