‘Stop The Steal’ Organizer Mark Finchem Tries To Censor Ad That Says He Helped Organize January 6

The Arizona Mirror reports that Coup Plotter insurrectionist Mark Finchem asks TV stations to pull an ad saying he ‘helped organize’ the Jan. 6 protest that ended in violence:

Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, sent a cease-and-desist letter this week to Arizona television stations demanding that they stop airing an ad from his opponent that accuses him of organizing the Jan. 6 riot.

The ad, paid for by the Arizona Democratic Party and authorized by Finchem’s opponent, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, says that Finchem “helped organize the January 6 protests where police were attacked.”

🚨 NEW TV AD 🚨

If Finchem wins, we all lose. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/bPnfmye32t

— Arizona Democratic Party (@azdemparty) October 4, 2022

Finchem’s [Coup Plotter] attorney [who filed meritless legal challenges to Arizona’s 2020 election results] called that particular claim false and said he was not involved with the organizing of the Jan. 6 protest. Finchem’s attorney, Jack Wilenchik, wrote that the stations were engaging in the spreading of “false, destructive and defamatory rumors” about Finchem.

Finchem, a state legislator from Oro Valley, has long been at the forefront of narratives around Jan. 6. [Ali Alexander], the lead organizer of the rally that turned into a violent riot said in an interview that Arizona’s “Stop The Steal” movement, which fueled the actions of Jan. 6, wouldn’t have existed without Finchem:

The lead organizer of the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into a deadly coup attempt based on the false idea that Donald Trump failed to win a second term as president because of massive voter fraud said Arizona’s #StopTheSteal movement started with one man: Mark Finchem.

“Arizona started with one man, State Representative Mark Finchem,” Alexander said to an interviewer posted by Church Militant on Jan. 10. “I’m very confident that the Stop The Steal movement has taken over Arizona.”

In the same video clip, Alexander claims that only nine prominent Arizona Republicans were involved in the movement before that meeting, but that the number had swelled to 50 afterward.

Finchem was present at the Jan. 6 rally and marched to the Capitol, and he praised the rioters on Twitter.

Alexander, a right-wing personality and former felon, started the “Stop the Steal” movement. In a since deleted video, he said the Jan. 6 rally was planned with Arizona Republican Congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, as well as Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks. Biggs has since denied the allegations. 

[On] December 11, Finchem tweeted at Alexander about the Jan. 6 event. 

“@ali I’ll be there! #stopthesteal #jerichomarch,” Finchem wrote. 

[In] the time leading up to Jan. 6, Finchem also tweeted at Alexander and others about his desire to convert his colleagues over to the “#StopTheSteal” movement. 

“The ‘protests not events’, as @ali puts it, that #stopthesteal has thrown around the U.S., but particularly here in Arizona, has empowered me to fight for Trump and convert my colleagues,” Finchem said on Dec. 20 before thanking Coudrey and Brandon Straka, who has been arrested for his connections to the Jan. 6 riot.

The Republican legislator also promoted the hashtag prominently on his Twitter, with tweets featuring it often garnering hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes. 

[In] total, Finchem used the hashtag 62 times from Nov. 19 to Jan. 6. After the violence of Jan. 6, Finchem stopped using the hashtag. 

On Jan. 2, Finchem wrote that he would be heading to the nation’s capital. 

“I will be in Washington DC on January 6 to #StopTheSteal and fight for President @realDonaldTrump,” Finchem said. “This is one of the most important days our republic has ever seen. We need all hands on deck.”

The tweet included a location and time for the event as well as a link to RSVP. The location was the U.S. Capitol. 

On Finchem’s old Twitter account, which he deleted in 2021, he frequently spouted misinformation about the 2020 elections, much of which was flagged by Twitter as being incorrect. He also spearheaded an event at a Phoenix hotel in late November during which Trump’s lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other pro-Trump figures gathered with state GOP lawmakers and the president’s supporters to discuss baseless theories that Joe Biden won Arizona’s election by fraud.

Joe Biden won the state by about 11,000 votes, and there has been no credible evidence of any fraud or malfeasance that affected the result. [The Arizona Senate GQP sham “fraudit”] run by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists and authorized by the GOP-controlled state Senate scrutinized the results from Maricopa County and found no proof of fraud.

On that Twitter account, Finchem also largely interacted and tweeted at the organizer of the event that would turn into chaos in D.C. on Jan. 6.

Finchem attended the Jan. 6 rally and marched to the Capitol, and he praised the rioters that day on Twitter. He’s given different narratives on where exactly he was on that day, and video evidence has shown he was much closer than he has previously stated.

Wilenchik, Finchem’s [Coup Plotter] attorney, has also been involved in many of the schemes around the 2020 election. He has represented the Cyber Ninjas, who conducted the Senate’s partisan ballot review, and corresponded with the Trump campaign about the fake elector scheme while representing the Arizona Republican Party. 

Finchem also has a history of filing lawsuits against his political rivals. He also launched a legal defense fund to “fight back” against what he sees as the “weaponization of the ‘free press,’” and last year sent a cease-and-desist to a failed recall campaign when they made similar accusations.

Finchem himself has also been the subject of lawsuits, such as a lawsuit that sought to remove him from the ballot for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The lawsuit, one of several in Arizona and across the country, aimed to use [Section 3 of] the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify candidates because of their support of the Jan. 6 attack, claiming they are “insurrectionists” and thus unable to hold public office. The Arizona Supreme Court [all Republicans] rejected the case. 

Finchem has a history of comparing his political rival’s actions to those of Nazi Germany.

Dude, take a look in the mirror. That fake cowboy staring back at you is is a fascist.

The Arizona Mirror reached out to the Arizona Broadcasters Association about the cease and desist but did not hear back in time for publication.

Tell him to go pound sand. There is nothing in this ad which is false. It is all drawn from publicly reported news reports which have been reported numerous times over the past two years by numerous news outlets. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that political speech, including and especially speech about politicians, merits the highest level of First Amendment protection. Arizona is not among the states which have a “false campaign speech” statute (if we did, nearly every ad you see on TV would result in a lawsuit).