Facing Re-election, Maricopa Co. Attorney Rachel Mitchell Politicizes Her Office to Truckle to Donald Trump and the MAGA Minions

An alternative title for this post might be “Democrats REALLY Need a Serious Candidate for Maricopa County Attorney”.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is certainly proving she is not above the partisan fray. Not only was she a hired legal gun to try and smear the sexual assault victim of Supreme Court Justice Brett “I like beer and pussy” Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing, she is now politicizing a murder to take a swipe at NY’s D.A. Alvin Bragg (who is prosecuting Trump’s criminal scheme to cover up his 2016 hush money payments to a porn star he paid to have sex with) in service to her Orange Caesar. Mitchell recently said at a presser that her team would not work with Mr. Bragg, whose office is seeking to charge the man, Raad Almansoori, in the killing of 38-year-old Denisse Oleas-Arancibia.

“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan D.A. there, Alvin Bragg,” Ms. Mitchell told reporters, “I think it’s safer to keep him here and keep him in custody, so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state, county, or anywhere in the United States.”

New York Times

The Jay Kuo of the Status Kuo characterizes Mitchell’s move pretty aptly, IMO:

Mitchell is now hoping to earn points by refusing to extradite a murder suspect to New York, where the homicide occurred. She claims Bragg is too lenient on criminals and that she fears the accused would be set free. This of course ignores the actual data showing that New York has a far lower per capita murder rate than Phoenix, where Mitchell is based.

Mitchell is running for a second term and is hoping to tarnish Bragg to prove her MAGA bona fides. The Manhattan DA’s office shot back, noting the political nature of the refusal to extradite:

“It is deeply disturbing that D.A. Mitchell is playing political games in a murder investigation,” said Manhattan DA’s office spokesperson Emily Tuttle in a statement. Tuttle also noted that killings and shootings had dropped since Bragg took office.

“New York’s murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Ariz., because of the hard work of the N.Y.P.D. and all of our law enforcement partners,” Tuttle said. “It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for a New Yorker’s death.”

Mitchell’s move is a familiar attack in a national political game. And it signals just how worried Republicans are about the Trump trial next month. We can expect, and should mentally prepare for, the drumbeat of criticism of Bragg to grow louder and more urgent as the trial date approaches.

The Status Kuo

Let’s just establish right up front that Mitchell’s stated reasons for doing something practically unheard of in response to a standard extradition request are total and utter nonsense. Even if her baseless allegations were true, it is New York JUDGES who make release decisions, not DA Bragg, and Mitchell definitely knows this.

She is picking a fight with Bragg over a totally non-existent concern in a very routine request over a serious matter (doesn’t get much more serious than holding a murderer to account) that is almost never declined, and justifying it with a purposeful and knowing lie about the New York prosecution system and wholly egregious attack on D.A. Bragg, but the real reasons are much closer to home. The reasons she’s done this are purely performative politics, and have nothing to do with the law or improving the quality of justice for the victim and family of that poor murdered woman and her family in New York.

What is Mitchell trying to fix? Mitchell did her job and thereby pissed off lots of local MAGA delusionists by defending Maricopa County’s elections against Kari Lake’s baseless lawsuits, that’s what. She’s trying to cultivate her base to protect her right flank. That’s what this about – and it is disgusting to me as a former prosecutor that she is abusing her discretion for such a naked and obvious political advantage.

Michell is playing the rankest sort of politics with her official powers. She does not deserve re-election – not just because she’s something of an ethical stain on the profession, generally, but has engaged in a wholly unprincipled political attack in service to the MAGA faction. She’s a political hack, not the sort of person whom we can trust to ethically and professionally run one of the largest prosecutorial agencies in the nation.

Throw in the facts that she has almost assuredly mislead the public about prosecuting women for their reproductive health choices and outcomes (though only time will tell on that matter once the Arizona State Supreme Court decides what Arizona’s conflicting laws regarding abortion actually mean) and utilized blatant anti-semitic tropes in her campaign fundraising – and Mitchell starts to look very much like a dirty politician trying and failing to effectively do a vitally important job that should be done by someone with the professionalism and integrity to follow the law and promote public safety without regard to political nonsense like this.

I very much hope that someone with the requisite professionalism and integrity – regardless of the letter after their name on the ballot line – steps up to relieve Ms. Mitchell of her burdens this November. We Democrats do not currently have a candidate for Maricopa County Attorney, and it kills me – we have plenty of folks who could do the job much better than Mitchell. The only declared candidate thus far is a Republican primary challenger from Mitchell’s right flank, Gina Godbehere, who is endorsed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Kari Lake, in case you were curious about what her priorities and predilections might be. Certainly, should Godbehere prevail in the primary, there will be a serious opportunity for a Democrat to mow down an extremist who will terrify more than half of Maricopa’s voters.

And to just cap off the stupidity of this whole affair, Mitchell has NO SAY in whether any particular extradition happens: it’s down to the discretion of the state governor, Katie Hobbs, or the prisoner can voluntarily submit to extradition,