By Daniel Stefanski |
Arizona Legislative Republicans aren’t finished with the City of Phoenix’s action to donate firearms to Ukraine.
Last week, three Arizona State Representatives sent a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, calling on the prosecutor to “immediately undertake a criminal and civil investigation of City of Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and City Councilmembers for their intentional and flagrant violation of state law in connection with their actions surrounding the City’s Ordinance S-50010.”
The letter from Representatives Travis Grantham, Quang Nguyen, and Selina Bliss, follows a response from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes regarding a 1487 complaint for “a recently passed City of Phoenix ordinance allowing the illegal donation of 599 unclaimed firearms to Ukraine’s national police force.” Mayes’ report found that “Arizona law requires cities to dispose of unclaimed firearms by selling them in the manner provided by statute, yet the Ordinance provides for Phoenix to dispose of its unclaimed firearms by donating them to Ukraine via an export company. Because a ‘donation’ is not a ‘sale’ – and because the Ordinance conflicts with A.R.S. 12-945 in other related respects – it violates that statute, and therefore also violates A.R.S. 13-3108(A) and A.R.S. 12-943.”
Attorney General Mayes’ findings forced the City of Phoenix to repeal the Ordinance, as the lawmakers admitted in their letter to Mitchell. However, the legislators noted some “alarming details” contained in Mayes’ report “that confirm the City Council’s lawlessness and egregious disregard for state law.” One of those details was that when faced with the threat of the Attorney General’s investigation, the City’s counsel disclosed that the City has already completed the firearms transfer contemplated by the Ordinance and the Agreement.
The three state lawmakers argue that “neither the AG’s Report nor the City’s repeal of its Ordinance absolves the City Mayor or Councilmembers of criminal or civil liability for their misconduct,” hoping that the County Attorney could determine “the extent to which the City’s elected officials conspired to: (1) knowingly and repeatedly violate state law – particularly after we alerted them to the illegality of their conduct; (2) conceal their conduct; and (3) interfere with, coerce, or thwart the Attorney General’s S.B. 1487 investigation through improper means or communications.”
At the end of the letter, the legislators wrote, “In a free society, it is critical that our elected officials follow the rule of law, even when they may disagree with the underlying policy of the law. Citizens in our state are held to this standard every day. Arizonans reasonably expect – and the law demands – that government leaders likewise comply with state law or risk serious consequences for their intentional disregard of the law.” They added their collective hope that “the Mayor and City Councilmembers must also be held fully accountable for facilitating crimes of others through their illegal transfer of weapons, including but not limited to domestic civil offenses, war crimes, and organized crimes defined in Chapter 23 of Title 13.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
