By Staff Reporter |
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes secured an internship for the son of one of her campaign donors who was also behind Wednesday’s debate, new records revealed.
Mayes’ campaign aide arranged for the son of Tim Riester, a donor, to receive an internship this past summer following a request from Riester, according to records reported by The California Globe.
Riester is the founder and CEO of RIESTER, an advertising and public relations firm with operations in Los Angeles, California and Park City, Utah in addition to Arizona.
Riester donated nearly $1,400 over two installments to the Mayes campaign. Riester asked Grace Forster, a campaign aide, about an internship for his son, Jim Riester, allegedly promised to him by Mayes herself the day after he made his second donation.
“When I was with Kris at her event on November 18th, she met my son Finn who is in law school and offered him an internship with the AG’s office this summer,” wrote Riester in an email to Forster.
Forster forwarded Riester’s email to several undisclosed recipients, then followed up days later on the internship request in an email to Mayes and multiple members of Mayes’ office: Bill Mundell, chief deputy attorney general; Emily McConnico, executive assistant; and Delaney Corcoran, who was Mayes’ deputy communications manager at the time and is now her campaign manager.
Mundell responded to Forster with a promise that an officer member would contact Riester. His son interned with Mayes’ Tobacco Enforcement Unit over the summer.
Riester was one of the principal partners behind Wednesday’s debate between Mayes and her Republican opponent, Senate President Warren Petersen.
Riester took over as a contractor for Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC) candidate debates in January 2024 alongside the Arizona Media Association after CCEC parted ways with Arizona PBS.
During the pandemic, Riester achieved significant public attention as one of the principal creative minds behind Arizona’s COVID-19 campaign advising masks under the direction of former Gov. Doug Ducey in 2020, according to reporting from the Arizona Mirror. The state spent somewhere around $3 million on the campaign. Riester gave $10,000 to Ducey’s reelection campaign in 2018, though a vast majority of his thousands in donations to state-level and federal-level candidates in recent years have gone to Democrats.
Last year, Riester and his wife, Mirja, also donated $11,000 to Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, and $1,000 to Nick Mansour, Democratic candidate for Arizona State Treasurer.
The pair also donated $10,800 to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ reelection campaign in October 2024. Mirja donated $10,000 to ActBlue Arizona and $10,000 to the Arizona Democratic Party in December 2022.
Last June, KJZZ interviewed Riester on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Riester dismissed the “Made in America” movement as rooted in white prejudice, not patriotism.
“The first documented usage was in [1800s] San Francisco, in the cigar industry, and Americans were concerned because of the mass immigration of Chinese residents who were moving to the United States. And they were afraid they were going to be able to make the products much more quickly and inexpensively,” said Riester. “So they created a label that, really, was about prejudice. It was a white label, and it meant that the cigars were made by white people instead of by Chinese people. And that evolved into the Made in America brand that over the years we’ve seen used periodically.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
