(AFP) – The FBI has extended its investigation of the 2020 US election, which President Donald Trump falsely claims to have won, to Arizona, state officials said Monday. The move comes six weeks after the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized 2020 election ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of a probe into alleged “electoral impropriety.”
Warren Petersen, Republican president of the Arizona Senate, said he had complied last week with a federal grand subpoena for records related to the state senate’s audit of 2020 voting in Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest. “The FBI has the records,” Petersen said on X. Trump on Monday posted a link on his Truth Social platform to an article on the right-wing news outlet Just the News about the Arizona records seizure, calling it “Great!!!” Arizona and Georgia were among the states that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
– ‘Weaponization’ –
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said the 2020 election in the state had been “exhaustively reviewed.” “The election results were certified, litigated, and affirmed,” Mayes said in a statement. “Multiple audits, court proceedings, and independent investigations — including those pursued by members of the same political party of the President — found no evidence of fraud sufficient to alter the outcome,” she said. “What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
FBI agents had raided election offices in Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes the heavily Democratic capital Atlanta, in late January, removing hundreds of boxes of ballots and other materials related to the 2020 vote. According to the search warrant affidavit used to justify the seizure, the FBI investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, the “Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity.” Olsen was among the members of Trump’s 2020 legal team who filed dozens of lawsuits contesting the election results that were tossed out by courts around the country.
The Republican president and others were charged in Georgia over their alleged efforts to subvert the election, but the prosecutor became embroiled in scandal and the case was ultimately dismissed in November 2025. Trump also faced federal charges over his alleged election subversion efforts that led to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol by his supporters. Those charges were dropped after Trump was elected in November 2024.
© 2024 AFP
