A lawsuit filed against Attorney General Kris Mayes alleges she attempted to sway the 2024 presidential election by using lawfare against President Donald Trump.
Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit, filed an open records lawsuit in January against Mayes in the Maricopa County Superior Court. Their lawsuit focuses on retrieving records related to Mayes’ brief criminal investigation into Trump’s remarks about former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson last Halloween in Arizona, Trump indicated Cheney shouldn’t speak on the terms of war without ever having been in the trenches.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” said Trump. “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’”
The next day, Mayes told multiple media outlets that she was looking into prosecuting Trump under Arizona criminal law for making a death threat.
Per Judicial Watch, Mayes’ public remarks on her alleged investigation “appears to be an attempt to paint Donald Trump as a criminal shortly before the election.” The election would take place just days after Mayes announced her criminal investigation into Trump.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement corresponding with the not-for-profit’s press release on the lawsuit that Mayes’ investigatory attempts into Trump were far too little to qualify as the investigation she had publicly claimed to launch.
The records show the threatened “investigation” of President Trump was merely an oral request from the Arizona General Mayes to a top staffer to evaluate the Liz Cheney statement. The only record of the investigation that exists is a 3-page memo from the Attorney General’s criminal division chief back to Mayes, which the Court reviewed in camera and determined was protected attorney work product and therefore can be withheld. Presumably (and probably from media sources) the memo declined to open a more substantial investigation or initiate a prosecution.
The lack of records further supports our theory that the investigation—purportedly launched on the Friday before the 2024 presidential election and dropped shortly thereafter—was a sham to try to influence the outcome of the election in an important swing state. This is yet another example of “lawfare” abuse targeting Trump.
No charges were filed against President Trump. About a week after the election, Mayes admitted to The Arizona Republic there existed “no reasonable likelihood” that Trump’s remarks broke any Arizona laws concerning death threats. Mayes also admitted the comments were protected by the First Amendment, though she indicated to the outlet they shouldn’t be considered as such.
The day before Mayes’ comments ran in that outlet, Judicial Watch submitted a public records request to Mayes’ office asking for the release of the documents pertaining to her brief investigation into Trump. However, her office didn’t respond.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit is seeking those records from Mayes’ office analyzing and determining Trump’s remarks as a death threat, records outlining the costs of the investigation, and any records in which Mayes addresses the limits of First Amendment-protected speech.