Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced during Channel 12 News’ “Sunday Square-Off,” that her office is now investigating President Donald Trump’s comments about “radical war hawk,” former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). The comments took place during a Glendale appearance with Tucker Carlson.
Mayes reportedly asked investigators to determine if Trump’s rhetorical remark on Cheney’s attitude toward sending American servicemen to war qualifies as a death threat when he said, “Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Speaking with 12News, Mayes said, “I have already asked my criminal division chief to start looking at that statement, analyzing it for whether it qualifies as a death threat under Arizona’s laws,” according to AZCentral.
“I’m not prepared now to say whether it was or it wasn’t, but it is not helpful as we prepare for our election and as we try to make sure that we keep the peace at our polling places and in our state,” she said.
During the campaign event at Glendale Stadium, Trump was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and the topic turned to former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter’s sudden turn against him during his presidency. Trump lamented that the elder Cheney turned against him but said he understood it as a need to support his daughter.
In full context President Trump told Carlson, “Dick Cheney’s daughter is a very dumb individual. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person. And I used to have, I’d have meetings with a lot of people and she always wanted to go to war with people.”
🚨TRUMP: "Dick Cheney's daughter is a very dumb individual. She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her, let's see how she feels about it when the guns trained on her face. They're all war hawks when they're sitting in… pic.twitter.com/Wzq4BBiP8C
Per Reuters, Mayes added “That’s the question, whether it did cross the line. It’s deeply troubling. It is the kind of thing that riles people up, and that makes our situation in Arizona and other states more dangerous.”
In a post to X, Cheney alluded to Trump being a “dictator” and characterized his comment with the claim, “They threaten those who speak against them with death,” and went on to call Trump a “petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Friday statement that his remarks were misinterpreted. She said, “President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves.” She added that this “is just a desperate attempt to help out Kamala Harris’ failed campaign.”
Every media outlet is reporting on the new Liz Cheney hoax.
Trump did not call for her to be kiIIed. The media know this and are purposely misleading their readers and leaving out the context.
Responding to the controversy in a post to Truth Social Trump wrote, “All I’m saying about Liz Cheney is that she is a War Hawk, and a dumb one at that, but she wouldn’t have ‘the guts’ to fight herself. It’s easy for her to talk, sitting far from where the death scenes take place, but put a gun in her hand, and let her go fight, and she’ll say, ‘No thanks!’ Her father decimated the Middle East, and other places, and got rich by doing so. He’s caused plenty of DEATH, and probably never even gave it a thought. That’s not what we want running our Country!”
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen reacted to the announcement Sunday in post to X writing, “Just learned that Kris Mayes is investigating @realDonaldTrump over what he said about Liz Cheney. First of all his comment was clearly not a threat. He said if she had to go to war instead of our kids then she would not be a warhawk. She has it completely backwards!
She should have told the media what he said was protected by the 1st amendment. Protect the Constitution instead of weaponizing your office to harrass and censure!”
She should have told the media what he said was protected by the 1st amendment. Protect the Constitution instead of weaponizing your office to harrass and censure!
Democrat candidate for Maricopa County Sheriff Tyler Kamp has been investigated by various news outlets since July. That’s when reports indicated the former Phoenix Police Department (PPD) Lieutenant was embroiled in a major sexual harassment scandal and faced charges in Payson.
The initial reporting of the harassment scandal by legacy outlets left a wide range of unanswered questions. These questions led to Maricopa County voter Brian Anderson, a researcher and founder of the Saguaro Group, to file a records request with the Phoenix PD seeking answers on Kamp’s past misconduct. However, as previously reported by AZ Free News, the PPD failed to disclose the records even after a demand letter. This prompted a lawsuit which succeeded in forcing the department to respond with records of its Internal Affairs/Equal Opportunity Employment investigation— a full ten months later.
Anderson’s attorney noted in one filing: “Defendant’s failure to disclose Mr. Kemp’s [sic] personnel records before the Primary Election has already resulted in the public not knowing possibly important matters of concern that the public should have knowledge of before voting at the General Election.”
NEW @azcentral – Democrat Tyler Kamp "repeatedly sexually harassed" a young female officer
In July, ABC15 reported on the scandal, citing a Phoenix Equal Opportunity Department probe which, at a paltry six pages, was severely lacking in detail and context. The PPD EEO report released under the Anderson lawsuit is a full eleven pages, and the findings are damning.
The victim summarized the harassment allegations, saying (Formatted for Clarity):
“From my time at the Mountain View Precinct of being an officer in training in 2020 under the training of ::REDACTED:: to July 24,2021 of being on 71B I was sexually harassed and affected in and out the work place emotionally and mentally by Lieutenant Tyler Kamp due to many inappropriate sexual comments.
The majority of this took place over text messages and phone calls as well as feeling pressured to meet in person on duty for non-work related topics.
Tyler Kamp was given multiple warnings of the inappropriate behavior over text messages, which did not stop after the first warning. Tyler would:
Ask me to go out with him to buy me drinks outside of work while being an officer in training and as a probationary officer
Comment about my body and weight
Send text messages that would include him stating about how I looked in yoga pants and about me bending over and having flirty eyes
Tell me to bring an etra(sic) pair of pants for after shift regarding meeting with him on New Years Eve
Become upset that I “ghosted” him on New Years Eve
Ask me if the best time to talk to me was after I have had a few drinks
Ask if I was proud of him for not telling me anything inappropriate when he was drinking
Make his presence known to me while in common areas
Tell me he would look at me in his training class and was disappointed that I did not solicit his attention more
Restrict me from working and taking calls for service on duty to meet him for non work related topics,
Restrict me from training and career advancements due to jealous behavior over my relationship and disregarding that I was in a relationship, causing me to avoid going into the precinct intentionally to avoid contact with him which resulted in me staying in my patrol vehicle until end of shift.
I purposely avoided contact with Tyler Kamp and he would send text messages regarding me avoiding him. He would:
Tell me over the phone that other employees such as ::REDACTED:: are jealous of me due to my looks and that I get special treatment that will offend other officers in as well as he had knowledge that I was being treated poorly by my FTO sergeant
Make me feel I could not defend or speak up for myself due to him being my direct lieutenant
Constantly track where I was at work, when I would arrive in, what I was driving in addition to making comments of what I was wearing such as yoga pants and thanking me for wearing the yoga pants.
Track where I was on shift and make contact with me asking why I would not respond to his text messages
Randomly text me not to marry young and about his his sex life in addition to informing me that he was a virgin when he married
Send morning and good night messages
Send me pictures of a female ATF employee that he stated was flirty and one of the pictures included her in a setting where she was unaware of him taking the picture and one of her in uniform while he was in uniform
Asking me to call him while off duty and to meet him on duty
Talk about inappropriate stories of him and his coworkers regarding drinking and stripper poles.
This behavior continued for a long period and made me feel I was put in a position of having to stay respectful, kind and allow this to continue for a long period over fear of losing my job. I was extremely uncomfortable with the behavior and this damaged my training and ability to work functionally at work and have to constantly be mentally prepared for the behavior and potentially come in contact with Tyler Kamp. I have struggled over this issue for a long time and continuously tried to cope with how I am seen and viewed at my work place, afraid of trusting any employee at a higher rank and feeling at a loss.”
Here are a few additional excerpts from her more detailed accounts:
Kamp “texted me in response to my previous message and asked me how a petite woman can hold down whiskey and that ‘I’m sure we will find out soon haha’”
“Taking notice of what time I got to work and stated ‘Yoga pants??? Shoot I missed it…’”
Kamp asked, “So was it bad that I admitted they look REALLY good on you??”
Two days later, Kamp “noted that I had the perfect body for gymnastics” and “added that he was sure I could show him some yoga stuff (big eyes emoji)”
Kamp then asked for a photograph of the victim’s family and “told me that my younger sister looks like me” even though the sister was younger than 18 years old; “This part upset me due to being aware of his attraction towards me and then commenting about how my minor sister looked like me.”
In November 2022, Kamp was reportedly interviewed and denied the sexual harassment allegations. He claimed the text messages were “friendly banter,” saying, “To me, I mean, it was just like friendly banter back-and-forth, but at the same time it was — it was a friendship. So, I mean, I might have friendly banter with another guy or another girl. It doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily attracted to ‘em or it doesn’t mean that, like, I’m trying to get in their pants or anything like that and vice-versa, like, I just don’t look at it that way. I think it’s more just in good fun. It’s more like in good fun.”
He claimed that if the text allegations were true, “I’m still not following why that would even be sexual harassment, but I don’t know if you can explain that or not.”
The Arizona Supreme Court handed a sound defeat to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and a victory to the America First Legal Foundation and Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, known as “EZAZ.org.” The court ruled on Thursday that Fontes’ office is ordered to immediately provide a full list of all individuals who registered to vote in the state of Arizona without providing the proof of citizenship required under the law, a total of approximately 218,000 people as previously reported by AZ Free News.
The ruling obliterated Fontes’ response to EZAZ.org’s demand for transparency, which claimed, “We fear, especially based on SCF’s filings, that its true desire here is not to keep watch on government actions — which our public records laws are designed to facilitate — but instead harass and intimidate voters in the midst of an election and whose rights Secretary Fontes has already vindicated before Arizona’s highest court.”
The court found that the testimony of Professor Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago who suggested with Fontes that “producing the list of 218,000 voters to EZAZ.org would expose those individuals to the risk of harassment and violence,” was “focused on political violence trends nationally and contained no analysis of such trends in Arizona.” They found further that, “Pape admitted on cross-examination that he conducted no research specific to Arizona. Professor Pape offered little more than speculation that a release of the requested information would lead to violence or harassment and, again, only based this opinion on national statistics.”
Finally, the court laid the claims about potential political violence to rest writing:
“The credibility of Professor Pape’s testimony and report was further diminished by what appeared to be gratuitous political bias in his report and in his testimony. The Professor’s opinions regarding general political violence focused almost entirely on allegations of past and anticipated prospective violence from only one side of the political spectrum, and only related to former president Donald Trump.”
The ruling concludes, “They failed to identify any specific threats of violence or harassment from EZAZ.org, and Ms. Hamilton’s unrebutted testimony established that EZAZ.org does not condone violent or harassing behavior and carefully screens its members and volunteers to ensure that persons who do condone or participate in such behavior do not participate in the organization.”
In a statement, America First Legal described the ruling saying, “The court found that Secretary Fontes ‘provided inconsistent testimony on this point’ and that ‘[h]is testimony suggested that he lacked detailed familiarity with the AZSOS’s efforts with regard to the issue and with regard to the records in the possession of the AZSOS related to the 218,000 individuals.’ The court’s order requires Secretary Fontes to produce the list of 98,000 individuals that he has along with any other personally identifying information that he has about the 218,000 individuals.”
James Rogers, America First Legal Senior Counsel, celebrated the ruling saying, “A majority of Arizonans no longer trust the election system of our state. One of the reasons is the lack of transparency from our state’s elected officials. When Secretary Fontes discovered the glitch that allowed 218,000 individuals to register without providing proof of citizenship, he should have immediately shared the list of affected individuals with Arizona’s county recorders, who are in charge of verifying the citizenship of voters. Instead, he has jealously guarded the list, refusing to share it with anyone. This suit was about restoring transparency and ensuring that county recorders can do their jobs by verifying the citizenship of voters. It is unfortunate that Secretary Fontes so aggressively opposed our common-sense efforts to help restore trust in our state’s election system.”
“This was a case we never should have needed to file,” said Rogers.
EZAZ.org’s Merrissa Hamilton wrote in a post to X, “FONTES = 0; TRANSPARENCY = WINNING! Despite AZ Secretary Adrian Fontes’ best efforts to falsely paint @AZHouseGOP@AZSenateGOP as homicidal maniacs (totally unhinged argument not remotely grounded in reality), while he’s also actively preventing Recorders from having access to do their jobs …
The Honorable Judge Blaney ruled in our favor in requiring Fontes to release to EZAZ.org the 98k voters impacted by the MVD ‘glitch’ causing voters to not have proof of citizenship on record.
Our only intent has always been to ensure the Recorders and Legislative leadership can do their jobs! And legal voters are enfranchised with confidence that their government is following the law in the operation of the elections!
Now that will happen! And the reputation of our happy, hardworking volunteers at EZAZ.org is restored!”
🥳FONTES = 0; TRANSPARENCY = WINNING!✅
Despite AZ Secretary Adrian Fontes' best efforts to falsely paint @AZHouseGOP@AZSenateGOP as homicidal maniacs (totally unhinged argument not remotely grounded in reality), while he's also actively preventing Recorders from having access… pic.twitter.com/ZlPl4JhhQi
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is facing serious criticism after legal threats issued to families using the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. The threats slammed the brakes on purchasing “supplementary materials” considered self-evident in need by the State Board of Education.
As reported by the AZ Mirror, a July notice from Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office told the director of the ESA program that they may be in violation of Arizona law by issuing reimbursements to families for supplementary education materials, (i.e. flash-cards, periodic tables of the elements, early books for new readers) without requiring that parents provide documentation that it is required under a curriculum.
In the six-page letter, Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Boughton wrote, “Approving ESA funds for materials that have no nexus to the student’s actual curricular needs contradicts the intent of the program and constitutes a payment of funds made without authorization of law.” She went on to claim that doing so, “may enable account holders or vendors to engage in fraudulent behavior, such as purchasing items with ESA funds solely for the purpose of resale.”
She advised that director, John Ward stop authorizing the reimbursements immediately.
Faced with a potentially damaging legal battle, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told parents in a statement that he would have to concede the point for now. “When I received the attorney general’s message, I sent it to the most knowledgeable people in my department,” Horne wrote.
“I asked them to look at it, not as an advocate, because we all disagree with the Attorney General, but in a neutral way, as though they were judges to determine if they could give me a reasonable assurance of success. They analyzed the statutes on which the attorney general relied, and indicated to me that as a neutral judge, they would rule against me if I made a fight out of it and refused to comply. Getting into a fight and losing, would be much more damaging.”
However, the tune from Mayes’ office changed sharply just one day after the Goldwater Institute filed lawsuit challenging the blatantly partisan determination. Attorneys from Goldwater representing two Arizona mothers wrote, “Following …unsuccessful legislative attempts, the office of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes initiated a new effort in July 2024 to dramatically limit the use of ESA funds, calling for a prohibition on the purchase of basic educational materials, including books, workbooks, and other ‘supplementary materials’ unless parents could provide an explicit ‘curricular’ document justifying the use of each specific book title or material for their child.”
“Arizona law expressly allows the purchase of such materials with ESA funds, however. In fact, state lawmakers added clarifying language in 2020 with the explicit purpose of ensuring that such purchases would not be denied, following the actions by former State Superintendent Kathy Hoffman that had restricted the purchase of many such items. The State Board of Education has likewise approved rules for the program explicitly permitting the purchase of these materials without additional documentation.”
The AG’s Office then began a campaign of feverishly walking back their determination with a statement responding to the suit. “The Attorney General has simply stated what is required by law,” adding, “The law doesn’t prevent parents from purchasing paper and pencils, but it does require that materials purchased with ESA funds be used for a child’s education.”
But this isn’t what Mayes’ office said in July when they demanded Superintendent Tom Horne’s department “promptly cease approving supplementary material expenses without the requisite documentation of a curriculum nexus,” no matter how self-evidently educational the materials are, as Matt Beienburg,the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute pointed out in an Arizona Daily Independent op-ed.
As Beienburg notes, Mayes’ office, far from simply targeting extravagant spending, threatened ESA administrators with legal liability unless they applied the same requirements on the list of obviously educational materials approved in the State Board of Education’s ESA Handbook: things like “books,” “workbooks,” “writing utensils,” “atlases/maps/globes,” “calculators,” “flash cards”, etc.
“Thesematerials are what Attorney General Mayes’ intervention is now blocking en masse—unless parents can cite a specific pre-established curriculum calling for the individual book title or resource,” Beienburg explained.
“In other words, the Attorney General’s office still demands that flashcards and other self-evidently educational materials be allowed only if a parent can produce an arbitrary piece of paper calling for their specific use.
The Attorney General’s attempted public deflection away from this fact demonstrates the absurdity of her summer demands. Perhaps she really does believe that families should have to justify their purchases of books like ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do You See?’ and ‘Little People Who Became Great’ to wiser government bureaucrats. But for the rest of us, such restrictions are clearly nonsensical and—under state law, illegal.
The Attorney General is supposed to uphold state law, not torture it to impose her policy preferences. We encourage the Attorney General to withdraw her summer demand letter, or else acknowledge flatly that her position is that families should have to justify why they picked ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?’ to read to their own children.”
The office of Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly has become the center of the latest election controversy in Arizona. On October 19th, the county’s online portal to request vote-by-mail ballots was shut down when voting officials claimed the site was overwhelmed with the quantity of requests. The shutdown occurred a week prior to the Oct. 25th deadline.
According to the Tucson Sentinel, as an alternative, the county office posted a notice at the top of the disabled form page instructing voters to call-in to the office in order to request a mail-in ballot.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Senator Wadsack Launches Investigation into Pima County Recorder's Office Following Apparent Elections Violations
Arizona Senator Justine Wadsack announced Wednesday that she is launching an investigation into the allegations against Cázares-Kelly’s office “following potential violations which may have suppressed thousands of Southern Arizona voters.”
“I was truly shocked to learn our County Recorder’s Office had done this,” Senator Wadsack said in a statement. “These actions are absolutely unacceptable, undermine the integrity of our elections, and raise serious questions regarding voter suppression. This has affected my current constituents and my community, and I want to make sure their votes are protected as well as votes for all candidates involved. I’m here to make sure there’s accountability for the laws that appear to have been broken. My message to voters is to get out today and vote in person to ensure your vote is not suppressed.”
In a letter of inquiry sent to the County Recorder, Wadsack wrote, “You certainly know that, under Arizona law, ‘an elector may make a verbal or signed request to the county recorder’ for an early ballot. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(A) (emphasis added). Further, your office must mail voters the early ballot ‘within forty-eight hours after receipt of the request.’ Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(D). It appears clear that your office violated both requirements.”
Arizona Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr issued a similar inquiry on Oct. 24th to Cázares-Kelly following allegations that the Recorder’s office, on receipt of undeliverable ballots or those returned due to an outdated address, sent notice that the voters mailed ballot was “received,” creating confusion.
We’re still waiting for answers to the questions asked in our below letter. Received an email yesterday that says they’ll get us those answers asap.
Is asap going to conveniently be November 6th? Maybe never? Why is the Pima County Recorder’s office not already following the… pic.twitter.com/mAcmfUfhZP
Per the Sentinel, Cázares-Kelly’s office sent alerts to approximately 4,000 voters in a mass email to notify them that their requests for a mail-in-ballot were canceled and instructed them to contact the office by phone to request a ballot, citing Marion Chubon, chief deputy to the Pima County Recorder, who ordered the shutdown. Chubon told reporters that the office didn’t inform the press as they “didn’t think it was a story.”
Chubon, responding to the outlet, explained that although the state law requiring ballots be sent within 48 hours of a request (as referred to by Sen. Wadsack), “was a consideration, obviously, and we weren’t going to fulfill those requests in that time. So we chose the more effective option – bottom line, getting those people their ballots that they needed.” However, the state law doesn’t allow for the County Recorder to make such a determination and cast aside requests that have already been submitted.
Subsequently, over 3,000 phone calls were fielded by the office on Oct. 21st and some 1,858 new requests were processed. Between that Monday and Friday another 2,829 requests were handled to the tune of approximately one every four minutes. Chubon told the outlet that she was confident that most of the voters whose requests were thrown out had received one. However she noted that, “We can’t guarantee that every single person called us to get a ballot, but we’re pretty confident that the majority of those were second requests… and those who didn’t fit into that category may have had a hold on their record and wouldn’t have gotten a ballot.”
“We just didn’t think it was a story,” Chubon added. “We were literally just trying to meet our statutory obligations and serve the voters. Like I said, over the weekend, we were processing unprecedented amounts of ballots. We have staff working 12-hour days, seven days a week, including the recorder and myself. We’re all working every day. It was just, ‘Let’s get these people their ballots.’ That was our focus. We would never, intentionally, not try to alert the media.”
