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The Justice Department has subpoenaed two Arizona Republican senators for information related to possible correspondence with President Donald Trump’s lawyers as efforts are made to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Arizona Senate President Karen Phan and Sen. Kelly Townsend received the subpoenas last week, according to Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Senate Republicans. The subpoenas came as the Justice Department deepened its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to include key Republican players in battleground states. Fan and Townsend are the first state lawmakers known to have received subpoenas as part of that push.
The Jan. 6 sweep expands with new subpoenas in multiple states
The Yellow Sheet Report, a political newsletter, first reported the news. Lawmakers received the subpoenas while at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix. Federal agents tried to deliver Townsend to her home, she said; she invited them to the government building where she worked.
The subpoenas came the same week that Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) testified before a US House special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Bowers testified about efforts by Trump and his allies to reverse the former president’s loss in Arizona.
Bowers told The Washington Post on Friday that he had not been subpoenaed and that he was not aware of any member of the Arizona House being subpoenaed.
Fann and Townsend are complying with the request, Quintero said, and officials have already identified tens of thousands of records from voters and others that could fit what is being broadly requested. The subpoenas are identical and require emails and text messages, Quintero said.
“They’re asking for text messages and emails from a list of people that I can’t reveal who those people are because we’ve been told not to talk to the media about it,” she said.
Before Townsend took office in the state Senate in 2021, she was in the Arizona House and chaired the election committee.
She was among Republican lawmakers who pressed state legislative leaders to help appoint alternative Arizona voters more favorable to Trump, despite his narrow loss. Townsend also attended a November 30, 2020, event in downtown Phoenix with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies, where they falsely claimed that widespread fraud had tainted the election.
Trump campaign documents show advisers knew fraudulent voter scheme was baseless
“As chairman of the election commission, we were trying to hold a committee and do investigations,” Townsend said in an interview Friday with The Washington Post. “Since it was in question, we wanted to have an alternate list in case fraud was discovered and discovered.”
She said an initial review of records in response to the subpoena turned up 50,000 documents, almost all of them from voters. Townsend said state Senate officials have asked the Justice Department to narrow its request.
Phan was among the state lawmakers who attended a Dec. 1, 2020 meeting with Giuliani, attorney Jenna Ellis and others who requested a formal legislative hearing to address the fraud allegations.
The hearing never took place, but Phan, on behalf of the state Senate, began a months-long review of 2.1 million ballots cast by voters in Arizona’s Maricopa County. The review was widely criticized as falling short of election audit standards. It ultimately found no evidence of widespread fraud, but cited flaws in the election process.
Here’s what you need to know about the final report on Arizona’s ballot review
The review concluded that Democrat Joe Biden won by a slightly larger margin than the official election results.
The two senators are the latest Republican figures in Arizona whose activities surrounding the 2020 election are under federal law enforcement scrutiny.
Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelly Ward and her husband, Michael, who were election deputies, received subpoenas from the Department of Justice earlier this month. So did two GOP activists who were alternative voters, Nancy Cottle and Lorraine Pellegrino, people familiar with the matter said.
The January 6 Uprising
The House Special Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot is holding a series of high-level hearings this month.
Congressional Hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol has conducted more than 1,000 interviews over the past year. He shared his findings in a series of hearings beginning June 9. Here’s what we know about the hearings and how to watch them.
The Rebellion: On January 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died that day or shortly thereafter, and 140 police officers were attacked.
Inside the siege: During the riot, rioters came dangerously close to breaking into the building’s inner sanctums while lawmakers were still inside, including former Vice President Mike Pence. The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on January 6.
Accusations: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario and four lieutenants were charged with a mutinous plot, joining Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes and about two dozen associates who were charged for their part in the Capitol attack. They are just some of the hundreds who have been charged, many of whom received sentences significantly lighter than the government had sought.
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