Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes Condemns Inquisition…Sorry… Committee Examining Her Actions and Record

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and her team at the AG’s office have not made life easy for individuals and businesses whose campaign donations and political persuasions steer toward the MAGA political spectrum.

Since being sworn in on January 2023, the Attorney General has worked to:

• Protect Women’s Reproductive Freedom and Health Care.
• Expose Fraud in the Empowerment Scholarship Program.
• Investigate attempts to defraud the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
• Safeguard the state’s groundwater supply from domestic and international corporate interests.
• Stem the flow of fentanyl at the border by calling on the Republican House to support increased border security.
• Stop landlords from taking advantage of renters by skyrocketing home costs.
• Protect the elderly in senior care facilities by going after vendors who are committing fraud and compromising their well-being.
• Opposed the merger of Kroger-Frys and Albertsons.

These actions, in service of everyday Arizonans, have earned the Attorney General the wrath of the Republicans at the Arizona State Legislature who have formed an Ad Hoc Committee on Executive Oversight, probably at the behest of the MAGA-Republican business and political interests her investigations have touched, to examine her actions in office.

Holding a press conference at the State Capitol, Ms. Mayes, accompanied by Democratic State Representative Oscar De Los Santos, held a press conference attacking the formation and convening of this committee.

Saying she was “here this morning to address head on the outlandish personal attacks on me and my office by the GOP Speaker of the House and the Senate President,” the Attorney General, with air quotes ridiculed the committee on Executive Oversight, calling attention that one of her political opponents, Andrew Gould, would be the main witness at their first meeting, saying “If that isn’t an indication of our elected officials using their platform and offices for political stunts, I don’t know what is.”

Calling the ad hoc committee a “sham,” the Attorney General then described many of the efforts (including some of those mentioned above) that her “fantastic team of lawyers and investigators have been working hard to protect all Arizonans.”

Mocking the Republican leadership and their inaction on these vital issues, Ms. Mayes commented:

“So perhaps our Republican Senate President and Speaker of the House aren’t very used to an Attorney General who will actually roll up her sleeves and fight for Arizona’s but that is what they have in me. Speaking of which, where were their investigative ad hoc committees on any number of these issues? Where was their concern? Where was the legislative oversight of my predecessor’s office when he wasted more than 10,000 investigative hours on virtually non-existent voter fraud while a record number of Arizonans were being harmed, scammed, and abused?”

Those are good questions for any objective political observer.

Quick answer. The reason the Republicans did not investigate is because it was their cronies doing the harming, scamming, and abusing.

She then chastised the Republican legislative leaders for heading off to political fundraisers, with plenty of bourbon, in Kentucky.

The Attorney General closed by stating it was time for serious and “real public servants” to join her to get the “work done.”

Ms. Mayes is right.

There are too many issues facing Arizonans to waste time in conducting political inquisitions that do not serve the people.