Arizona Secretary of State is
asking the State Attorney General
to pursue a criminal investigation
into Donald Trump and his allies,
in regard to their attempt to
influence the 2020 election in
their state.
Now, Katie Hobbs said some of
the communications involve clear
efforts to induce supervisors to
refuse to comply with their duties,
which could violate Arizona law.
Katie Hobbs is
the Arizona Secretary of State.
Yes, she is a Democrat,
the State's Attorney General is
a Republican so do what you
will with that information.
But honestly,
their political affiliations
are irrelevant when you look at
the evidence that's been provided
in regard to the Trump campaigns
attempts to influence the election.
As you said just last week,
Katie Hobbs says,
fair elections are the cornerstone
of our republic, and
they start with rational laws that
protect both the right to vote and
the accuracy of the results.
Hobbs wrote in her letter to
Brnovich seeking an investigation.
Arizona law protects election
officials from those who would seek
to interfere with their sacred
duties to ascertain and
certify the will of the voters.
Now she cited text messages and
voicemails from the White House and
Trump's personal attorney,
Rudy Giuliani, and the Arizona
Republican party Chair Kelli Ward,
to the Republican members of
the Board of Supervisors as her
reasoning for why there should be
a criminal investigation into this.
There were two separate attempts by
the way, by Trump to reach
Republican Supervisor Clint Hickman
in the weeks after the election as
the President's allies sought to
alter the election results.
At the time, Hickman was chairman
of the Board of Supervisors,
the elected body that
oversees elections in the state's
most populous county.
Now, Hickman received the first
call from the White House
switchboard on December 31, while
he was out celebrating the coming
new year with his wife and friends.
He let the call go to voicemail.
And then a second call came on
the night of January 3rd.
Hickman sought to avoid talking to
the president because of ongoing
litigation and
let the call go to voicemail.
And then you have Rudy Giuliani
getting involved as well.
And I'll give you those details in
just a minute.
But Cenk, thoughts.
>> The hilarious part of this is
that, the Republicans are like
there's been problems with the
election, and fraud, and potential
interference by Hugo Chavez.
He probably got out of his grave
and came over here and interfered,
and Trump's latest theory is
the Italians did it.
>> But obviously.
>> [LAUGH] Okay, interesting
theory, right?
But this is actually direct illegal
election interference.
Someone involved in an election
can't call the people counting the
votes and apply pressure to them.
That's ridiculous, of course,
they can't do that, that's illegal.
>> So since they attempted election
meddling, but
the election meddling didn't work,
does that mean that just talking
about this is election gate?
Should we stop talking about it?
>> [LAUGH] Election gate, okay?
But look her request in all
seriousness is
perfectly reasonable.
If Joe Biden was going around
calling election officials saying,
you've got to change the voter,
there's been problems and
you could have political issues.
And all the different threats,
intimidations and also rewards that
they were thinking of doing, you'll
be a hero and you'd be celebrated
in Republican circles wink, wink if
you do the things that we want.
I would say that's terrible,
of course, Joe Biden shouldn't do.
That's crazy, no way, right?
Trump does it, of course,
all the Republicans are like,
election interference is awesome.
Election gate or
whatever, >> [LAUGH] Okay, right?
>> No, so now let's move on to Rudy
Giuliani, who embarrassed himself
repeatedly following the 2020
election and all these court
battles where judges were like,
bro, do you have any evidence?
No, I don't, I'm
just wasting your time.
That's what Rudy Giuliani did
several times.
Now apparently, Giuliani had made
calls to the supervisors before and
after his November 30 meeting in
Phoenix about the election
committee with a handful of GOP
state lawmakers.
So he had said, quote,
If you get a chance,
this is in a text message that was
uncovered by Arizona Republic.
If you get a chance,
would you please give me a call?
I have a few things I'd like to
talk over with you.
Maybe we can get this thing
fixed up.
You know, I really think it's
a shame that Republicans sort of
are both in this kind of situation.
And I think there may be a nice way
to resolve this for everybody.
And then when it comes to
the Arizona Republican Party Chair
Kelli Ward,
she attempted to pressure
supervisors to stop the counting,
to delay certifying the results,
and to look into whether voting
software added votes for Democrats.
Her efforts continued as Trump's
legal challenges
fell short across the country.
When those efforts did not succeed
though, through various texts, or
through various tech, she said
supervisors were unAmerican, and
were playing for the wrong team.
So there was all this pressure for
officials to essentially go against
the will of the people and
just give Trump and his campaign
the results that they wanted.
Even though he lost that state,
he lost the state of Arizona
fair and square.
>> Yes, so Kelli Ward saying, hey,
we could really support you over
the next four years.
I'm heading up the Republican party
in this state or you're unAmerican.
Chair, I wonder if that's
interfering with an election
[LAUGH] and creating incentives and
disincentives, carrots and
sticks, etc.
And you say, hey, Cenk,
how do you know that Trump
was going to pressure this election
official in Arizona?
He had to leave voicemails,
he didn't get through to him.
First of all, I'm sure that he was
just calling him randomly.
He's like, I'm thinking of calling
the dog catcher in Minnesota, or
payment election official in
Arizona in a really tight race
that I'm involved in, okay?
So first of all, gosh, he's calling
[LAUGH] to interfere in matter, but
it's not just that, remember he
actually did reach the election
officials in Georgia and
they recorded the call.
We heard the call, and in the call,
he won 100%.
He interferes with the election,
meddles with it,
and puts tremendous pressure to
change the results.
I mean, there's thousand reasons
why Donald Trump should be in jail,
but in this case, it's just
a matter of, they're asking, hey,
can we follow Arizona law?
Is that possible?
Because I thought that
the Republicans were a party of
law and order.
But it seems like whatever the law
is applied to them,
they despise it,
whether they're beating up cops and
killing folks in the Capitol riots.
Or in this case,
where they're like, well,
we don't like election law when we
lose, we just want to be able to
interfere and switch the results.
And you guys keep insisting
on a democracy, that's it, defund
the cops [LAUGH] or whatever it is
that they're pushing for here.
But here the Democrats are pushing
for people to actually apply
the law, and that would be
a nice change of pace in America.