By Staff Reporter |
Arizona lawmakers revealed during a committee hearing that Maricopa County’s former recorder, Stephen Richer, is being investigated for obstruction.
The investigation into Richer was disclosed during last week’s House Federalism, Military Affairs, & Elections Committee meeting. The committee discussed an investigation by the office of State Rep. John Gillette (R-LD30), chair of the committee, into Arizona’s voter registrations. The findings of that investigation were packaged as part of a criminal referral to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
As part of his layout of the criminal referral packet, Gillette touched on an action by Richer in which the former recorder, while president of the Arizona Association of County Recorders (AACR) in 2023, advised other county recorders to not comply with a records request from Arizona lawmakers concerning the 2022 election.
“Stephen Richer telling recorders not to comply with the legislative public records request. That is not a glitch. That’s on purpose,” said Gillette.
State Rep. Rachel Keshel (R-LD17), vice chair of the committee, asked Gillette whether Richer reaching out to all of the county recorders qualified as obstruction. Keshel characterized Richer’s recent public engagements as a “CYA campaign.”
“Is there something there that he broke the law by telling other recorders to basically obstruct on that point? Is anything being looked into on that front?” asked Keshel.
Gillette disclosed that he discussed Richer’s actions with former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and “her assistant,” and that Richer was being investigated for that communication with other recorders.
“There appears to be some obstruction or intent to obstruct other recorders from doing their job because they have an association, he was president of the association at the time, but he was instructing other elected officials that are not of Maricopa County how to comply or not comply in this case with a lawful public records request from the House,” said Gillette. “That is being looked at, and thus we’ve had a subpoena issued since.”
Richer commented on a video posted of the exchange with an “lol” in an X post, which he later deleted.
Earlier this month, federal investigators seized election-related records from Maricopa County as part of an investigation into the 2020 presidential election.
In response to that investigation, Richer wrote in a Dispatch op-ed defending the official outcome of the 2020 election. Richer characterized Arizona Republicans as being “maniacally obsessed [with] theories of a stolen election” and questioning the necessity of continuing scrutiny over Arizona elections.
“The years of investigations, tests, reviews, and audits are also worth revisiting because any future allegations would have to account for why all the previous probes didn’t uncover any material fraud or error,” wrote Richer. “I would politely suggest that the reason is because no such fraud or error exists. The voters of Arizona chose Joe Biden more than five and a half years ago. It’s time to move on.”
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