The Arizona Attorney General Office has rejected a request by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to investigate allegations that President Donald Trump’s efforts to reform the U.S. Postal Service are actually part of a scheme to interfere in the upcoming elections.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich tweeted:
Today, we responded back to the Secretary of State, who called for a criminal investigation over proposed changes to the USPS. Our office will not be swayed by politics. Misinformation is dangerous to the electoral process and undermines voter confidence.https://t.co/1MkfJQDAZ0 pic.twitter.com/uZurA42puN
— Mark Brnovich (@GeneralBrnovich) August 19, 2020
Arizona Attorney General’s Chief of Staff, Joe Kanefield, questioned Hobbs’ apparent undermining of the public’s confidence in the integrity of elections in a tersely worded letter.
Hobbs’ request for an investigation followed a deluge of false reports of mailboxes being removed from key states by the Trump administration. Conspiracy theorists promoted the idea that the reforms initiated by the Trump administration were really just part of a grand scheme to make mail-in ballots use difficult if not impossible.
The full text of the letter:
Dear Secretary Hobbs:
The Attorney General is in receipt of your letter dated August 14, 2020, alleging that President Trump and others are in violation of A.R.S. § 16-1003, as a result of proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”). Based on our review of your letter we are unable to substantiate a violation of A.R.S. § 16-1003, and therefore dismiss your complaint.
Your letter alleges that “President Trump, and others at his direction [] conspired to violate” A.R.S. § 16-1003, which makes it a class 3 misdemeanor for a person to knowingly delay the delivery of a ballot. Your letter asserts that “[t]he timing of [certain] changes” to the USPS operations—combined with the President’s Twitter comments and your review of certain news articles-leads to an “inescapable conclusion” that there is a “coordinated scheme” designed to interfere with Arizonans’ ability to vote by mail.
These allegations are purely speculative, and your letter contains no information or evidence establishing that the delivery of any Arizona ballot has been illegally delayed. As you aptly note, “[m]isinformation is dangerous to the electoral process and undermines voter confidence.” Making accusations of criminal misconduct by the President and other federal officials based on mere conjecture undermines the integrity of our elections and does even more damage coming from a “trusted source” for election information. With tensions rising over the 2020 election, it is critical that election officials across the state work with our office to prevent, detect, and prosecute violations of Arizona election law, and not use the complaint process for political purposes.
Despite the conjectural nature of your letter, our Election Integrity Unit (the “EIU”) carefully reviewed your allegations and found them to be grounded in a misunderstanding about the USPS ‘s organizational structure. Your letter alleges that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is coordinating with President Trump. However, “[u]nlike other executive agencies, the [USPS] is governed not by a single presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed agency head, but rather by an entity known as the Board of Governors.”2 Accordingly, Postmaster DeJoy was selected by, reports to, and is a member of a bipartisan Board of Governors, and does not report to the President.
Additionally, the USPS cost-saving measures that you criticize were “implemented on a state-by-state basis,” and you present no evidence to the EIU that any action by the President impacted USPS operations in Arizona during the August 4, 2020 Primary Election. As you know, voter turnout reached historic levels, and you have not informed the EIU of any issues with mail-in balloting during this election. The evidence in Arizona, therefore, does not suggest that there has been or will be voter disenfranchisement as a result of any changes to the postal system.
Finally, Postmaster General Deloy announced yesterday: “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.” Given that the allegations in your letter are without merit and are now moot, we will take no further action on your complaint.
In the midst of a pandemic and within months of a major election, it is critical that election officials not spread misinformation, politicize administrative processes, or criminalize congressional funding issues. To the extent you may be confronted with other political issues like this one in the future, we encourage you to take steps to maintain, rather than undermine, public confidence in Arizona’s election processes.
Like Hobbs, who is accused of exploiting the fake news for political gain, others seem to have found a way to use it to raise money.
Wear a mask. Save the USPS.
Get the shirt. ➡️ https://t.co/zwITofjNu6 pic.twitter.com/z3P0tgFTnz
— Tina Smith (@TinaSmithMN) August 19, 2020