The documents released by Attorney General Kris Mayes that her cowardly and opportunistic predecessor Mark Brnovich held onto so the MAGA Election Denying crowd could still have the Big Lie from the 2020 election to hold on to is already a classic.
It made headlines in the Washington Post and earned Brnovich strong rebukes from political figures like Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
Along with the revelations last week that the MAGA patrons at FOX News knew the Big Lie was in fact a lie and only repeatedly broadcast the false narrative so Newsmax and other extremists “news” organizations would not supplant them in the ratings game, one would think that the Big Lie’s biggest proponents would want to stay out of sight for the next few days or weeks.
Not so with Arizona’s MAGA stalwarts like the leaders of the Senate Committee on Elections and the House Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections like Wendy “The COVID vaccine is the Mark of the Beast and I have no evidence to give to the Attorney General” Rogers.
Instead of canceling their planned meeting today to push more aspects of the Big Lie (or even, as good taste suggests, disbanding the committee altogether,), they intend to proceed with a close to eight-hour meeting to highlight items that include giving a sounding board for extremist election denying Representative Liz Harris and discussing foreign threats to Arizona’s Constitution and election system.
Reacting to yesterday’s document release by Attorney General Kris Mayes and the planned continuation of today’s homage to the Big Lie meeting, Arizona State Senators Anna Hernandez, Priya Sundareshan, and Juan Mendez issued a joint video presentation.
Mendez said this meeting would be “dangerous and disappointing (because) of the continued attacks on our elections…Our Democracy is sacred and the continued platforming of these lies is immature and dangerous.”
Hernandez pointed out that this “committee hearing is being held by known conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and supporters of the January 6 Insurrection on our Nation’s Capitol…Nothing new will be presented.”
Citing the documents released by Mayes, Sundareshan pointed out that two of the committee’s biggest big lie fans “Senators Borreli and Elections Chair Wendy Rogers were both given the chance to partake in this investigation in the 2020 election and they declined or failed to provide any accurate information to investigators.”
Please see the full video below by clicking here.
Mendez advised viewers that they would not attend the Committee meeting today.
UPDATED: House Democrats have also refused to attend the meeting.
House Democratic Committee members Melody Hernandez, Cesar Aguilar, Oscar De Los Santos, and Laura Terech released a joint statement, stating:
“The House Democratic members of the Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee will not attend today’s seven-hour circus of debunked election conspiracies. We were given less than 24 hours notice and not consulted on the list of speakers or topics. If we had been, we would have suggested the Committee instead examine the stunning report released on Wednesday by Attorney General Kris Mayes that showed in exhaustive detail how her Republican predecessor’s attorneys spent more than 10,000 hours investigating claims of fraud in the 2020 election and found nothing. We should be asking former Attorney General Mark Brnovich why he then suppressed these findings. Facts are important, and we must combat misinformation, especially when discussing elections in Arizona.”
That may be a mistake because there would be no one there to refute the baseless election lie assertions that will be presented.
They should be there to counter the false claims made by these charlatans and defend Democracy.
Agreed. Democrats should attend and use their question time effectively. Look to the Democrats on the federal House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and how effectively they have exposed this conspiracy theorist clown show for what it is.