by Staff Reporter | Nov 13, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
A recent whistleblower filing alleges Attorney General Kris Mayes was paid to prosecute President Donald Trump’s supporters.
According to the whistleblower, Christina Bobb — one of the indicted former Trump lawyers and current senior elections counsel for the Republican National Committee — Mayes inadvertently disclosed in filings her receipt of $200,000 from a Democratic Party offshoot founded in the 2020 election cycle for the purpose of defeating Trump and his allies.
The funds came from States United Democracy Center (SUDC), which the complaint alleged was payment to grant the organization prosecutorial influence over Mayes’ case against Trump’s 2020 attorneys, allies, and electors. The payment came in two allotments: $50,000 and $150,000.
“Prosecutors claim on the record and in emails that States United represents their office,” stated the complaint.
SUDC delivered a document to Mayes in the summer of 2023 proposing the charges to be brought against Trump’s foremost 2020 supporters. Mayes’ chief deputy attorney general, Dan Barr, told Capitol Media Services last December that the SUDC document “did not have a significant, if much, impact at all” in their case against the Trump 2020 electors.
Consistent with Mayes’ ongoing resistance to disclose further details of their working relationship with SUDC as related to the prosecution of Trump supporters, Barr declined to “get into the inner workings” of their relationship with SUDC.
Two key participants within SUDC involvement in Mayes’ prosecution have a history of high-profile actions taken to undermine Trump.
SUDC founder Norm Eisen was co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Trump in 2020.
The attorney on SUDC filings, Marc Elias, was counsel for former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Elias also coordinated the Steele dossier that would serve as the basis for the falsified allegations of Russia interference in the 2016 election. In recent years, Elias has been the left-leaning legal bully stick ensuring the success of Democrat-led election reforms and demise of Republican-led election reforms.
The whistleblower complaint also questioned whether Mayes would receive a third payment upon a successful conviction.
Bobbs’ complaint was filed alongside a motion to disqualify Mayes and SUDC from continuing prosecution.
The motion came shortly after a Maricopa County Superior Court remanded Mayes’ case back to the grand jury for violating due process.
In September, several months after this motion was filed, Mayes lost her bid to continue prosecution with the court of appeals.
Mayes not only has these recent court outcomes stacked against her case — she has federal pressures as well.
Last Friday, President Donald Trump pardoned his key 2020 supporters through a proclamation — including those whom Mayes seeks to prosecute.
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” stated Trump.
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller responded to the pardons with the prediction that Mayes would drop the case, saying she had “no choice” in a Tuesday interview with The Gateway Pundit.
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by Staff Reporter | Nov 12, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Arizona may be the next state to adopt drug injection sites following Governor Katie Hobbs’ veto.
Safe injection sites, overdose prevention centers, safer drug consumption services, supervised injection services—all descriptors for locations or facilities where drug addicts can inject illegal drugs while medical personnel watch to ensure an overdose doesn’t occur. In the event of an overdose, personnel intervene to reverse it.
Arizona doesn’t have any drug injection sites—yet. It also doesn’t have a ban on them, and it won’t for the foreseeable future under this current administration.
Earlier this year, Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed HB2798, a bill that would have prohibited local governments from allowing the development of any drug injection sites. Hobbs indicated the injection sites were part of “common sense solutions” for drug addiction.
“These sites are nonexistent in Arizona,” said Hobbs. “I encourage the Legislature to seek common sense solutions to actually help Arizonans struggling with substance use disorder.”
Hobbs’ veto rationale wasn’t widely shared by others in her party. Other states banned drug injection sites before they came into existence. Pennsylvania, for example, passed a ban in 2023 with the support of Governor Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat. So did California.
State-supplied overdose reversal kits are widespread in the state already, even and especially in places where minors frequent. Arizona schools have received tens of thousands of overdose kits in recent years to address the growing trend of minors abusing drugs. Libraries across the Valley also received more than their fair share.
The lawmaker behind the rejected bill, Republican State Rep. Matt Gress, said Hobbs should be replaced for killing his legislation.
Gress paired his commentary with recent footage of an injection site from Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“Arizona deserves a better governor,” said Gress.
Those who spoke out against the bill during committee hearings included the Southwest Recovery Alliance (SRA).
SRA’s executive director Arlene Mahoney opposed the bill language referring to drug injection sites as “narcotics injection sites” rather than “overdose prevention centers,” which advocates often prefer.
“I think the name ‘narcotics injection site’ incites a lot of fear into people and it doesn’t encompass what an overdose prevention center actually provides. It’s an integrative healthcare facility that offers, yes, a safe place for people to consume pre-obtained drugs inside a facility which they would be doing in parks and other places anyways,” said Mahoney.
Mahoney was a social worker and co-investigator on a federally funded study on methadone application at the University of Arizona’s Harm Reduction Research Lab from last year to August.
In 2023, the Biden administration issued a $5 million grant to study the effectiveness of overdose prevention across 1,000 participants at two safe injection sites in New York City and one in Providence, Rhode Island, over the course of four years.
The first injection site in the United States was authorized to launch by New York City in 2021.
Apart from New York and Rhode Island, few legally sanctioned drug injection sites exist because of concerns with federal drug laws.
The city council of Denver, Colorado, attempted to implement a drug injection site in 2018, but the Trump administration warned the site would be illegal.
However, after the Biden administration showed a friendliness to the concept, more drug injection centers are emerging.
In 2022, San Francisco launched a social services resource facility, the Tenderloin Center, that quickly devolved into a drug injection site. The transition to the latter caused the site’s closure after less than a year.
The Tenderloin Center racked up a serious bill: $22 million to service around 400 people daily for 11 months. That’s about $72,400 a day—just under $200 per person if, indeed, an average of 400 people used the center daily.
Last year, Vermont established operating guidelines for drug injection centers after its legislature authorized and funded a drug injection center in the city of Burlington. The city launched its drug injection pilot program earlier this year.
Minnesota has authorized state funding for drug injection centers, but hasn’t granted legal authorization for them.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 8, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari is continuing to dedicate her limited constituent-services capacity during the shutdown to illegal immigrants.
Ansari maintains these individuals qualify as constituents, though they aren’t voting members of the district.
The congresswoman says one of the detained immigrants she visited, Arbella “Yari” Rodriguez Marquez, counts as a constituent because she had a green card until recently. Marquez’s case has been picked up by the media due to her alleged ongoing cancer battle.
Green card holders cannot vote.
Immigration enforcement spokespersons announced over the summer, following heightened media attention, that Marquez doesn’t have cancer and that medical professionals had assisted her over a dozen times since her detainment in February.
“[W]hen she was arrested by @CBP for attempting to smuggle an illegal alien with fraudulent identification in her vehicle through the Nogales, Arizona port of entry, she told law enforcement she had no medical conditions and was not taking any medications,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
Marquez claims to have chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
In her last visit with Marquez, which lasted hours, Ansari revealed Marquez was allegedly visited by an oncologist on Oct. 8 but has not yet received the results or treatment plan from that visit. According to Ansari, the records from that visit will be delivered within the next two weeks.
Ansari did acknowledge the officials’ claim that Marquez doesn’t have cancer.
“Quite frankly, a lot of questioning, a lot of character assassination of Yari, the woman that was there with us insinuated there may be some doubt about her cancer from doctors and so they want her medical records from Mexico and from here,” said Ansari.
Officials also clarified that Marquez lost her green card and was detained for removal proceedings based on charges of human smuggling.
The congresswoman devoted the remainder of her time to pointing the finger at Republican leadership.
Ansari set up a table in front of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office. A handmade sign taped to the tablefront read: “Mike Johnson is starving families and gutting healthcare to cover up the Epstein files; change my mind.”
This claim of an Epstein files coverup is the Democrats’ latest talking point to pressure Republicans to agree to their terms for ending the government shutdown.
Ansari later claimed she was asked to vacate her makeshift post outside Johnson’s office.
The government shutdown has now lasted nearly 40 days. It broke the historical record for the longest shutdown officially on Wednesday. The December 2018 to January 2019 shutdown lasted 35 days. The third-longest shutdown occurred under President Bill Clinton from December 1995 to January 1996, 21 days.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated on Wednesday to reporters that they have nearly closed on a bipartisan “mini-package” deal for stopgap funding that would pay the select federal agencies necessary to end the shutdown.
Anonymized leaks to the press said a Friday vote would occur. Allegedly, Thune told fellow Republicans the Senate would take the necessary steps to end the shutdown on Friday, according to anonymous sources who spoke to Politico.
However, other source chatter indicated that Democrats felt more secure with prolonging a shutdown to negotiate stricter terms in their favor after the most recent election on Tuesday.
The shutdown’s impact to Arizona amounts to just under $300 million each week, or $1.3 billion per month. About 887,000 Arizonans rely on the SNAP benefits that dried up last week, 344,000 of whom are children. Around 58,000 federal workers in the state were furloughed or are working without pay.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 6, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The newest member of the Tucson City Council is further left than the rest of the council’s Democrats.
That’s because newly elected Tucson Councilwoman Miranda Schubert is a socialist. Schubert’s victory can be credited in part to several powerful national players in progressive politics.
One of those key players is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The DSA endorsed Schubert; she is also a member of their Tucson chapter.
The DSA platform is the furthest to the left, policywise, on every issue.
The DSA advocates for:
- making all healthcare, college, and childcare free;
- cancelling all student loan debts;
- decriminalizing all drugs;
- abolishing prisons, mandatory minimum sentencing, and cash bail;
- stripping police departments of military-grade weapons and equipment;
- establishing universal rent control;
- providing free counsel for all tenants;
- expanding subsidized housing;
- mandating paid family leave for all workers;
- reducing the regular workweek to 32 hours;
- establishing more unions in the workforce;
- eliminating fossil fuels;
- transferring ownership of transportation and energy infrastructure to the public;
- raising taxes on wealthier families, corporations, and private colleges and universities;
- mandating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza;
- ending military support and commerce to Israel;
- closing overseas bases and reducing the military budget;
- abolishing borders and immigration enforcement;
- ending economic sanctions on foreign countries;
- restoring voting rights to felons;
- granting voting rights to noncitizens;
- establishing statehood for Washington, D.C.;
- abolishing the electoral college;
- adding more House seats;
- ending the Senate filibuster;
- and limiting the Supreme Court’s powers
Schubert’s local DSA in Tucson aligns with this platform, and also supports progressive causes like allowing gender transitions for minors.
Another key player integral to Schubert’s victory was Run For Something (RFS), a political action committee devoted to recruiting and providing campaign assistance to progressive candidates across all 50 states. A former staffer from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Amanda Litman, and a Democratic Party consultant, Ross Morales Rocketto, launched RFS in 2017.
Schubert was one of two 2025 candidates in Arizona to receive support from RFS. They also provided Schubert support for her unsuccessful council run in 2021; that year she was their only endorsed candidate for Arizona.
IRS records show the social welfare nonprofit arm for RFS — formed in 2020 with the same name as its parent organization — reported over $6 million in revenue, over $9 million in expenditures, and nearly $7 million in total assets in the last available reporting (2023).
Another DSA member won a significant seat across the country on Tuesday night: Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor.
Along with the strength of progressive powerhouses DSA and RFS, Schubert had significant support from the corporate sector: specifically, those assisting in transitioning the state to “clean” energy.
Schubert’s partner, Amanda Maass, is senior managing consultant at Illume Advising, a progressive research and advisory firm with headquarters in Tucson and Madison, Wisconsin. Illume assists utilities, states, and governments with the adoption of “clean” and “green” initiatives such as decarbonization and renewable energy.
Both Arizona Public Service (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) have been Illume clients. In recent years, Illume worked with both to craft a DEI-driven plan to electrify transportation across Arizona.
Illume has close ties to local and state leaders, including Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Pima County Deputy Administrator Steve Holmes, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, and Attorney General Kris Mayes. Romero’s communications and policy advisor, Victor Mercado, was Illume’s marketing and business development principal.
Illume founder and co-owner Anne Dougherty is board chair of the LGBTQ+ Alliance Fund of Southern Arizona, and director for the Arizona Technology Council as well as Groundswell Capital.
Prior to running for council, Schubert founded a labor union for Arizona’s public universities and some community colleges, CWA Local 7065 United Campus Workers of Arizona, and a local housing and transit advocacy group, Tucson for Everyone.
Schubert also served on two city commissions, the Complete Streets Coordinating Council and the Board of Adjustment.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 5, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
President Donald Trump endorsed former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb for the 2026 fifth congressional district race.
Trump dubbed Lamb a “MAGA Warrior,” with a subtle remark of appreciation given to Lamb’s primary opponent, former NFL player Jay Feely (Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Arizona Cardinals, and Chicago Bears).
Lamb and Feely are competing for the seat that will be vacated by Congressman Andy Biggs, who is retiring from Washington to challenge Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs for her seat.
“As the former Sheriff of Pinal County, Mark strongly supports our incredible law enforcement, military, and veterans, and knows the wisdom and courage it takes to ensure law and order,” said Trump. “In Congress, Mark will work hard to keep our now very secure border, secure, stop migrant crime, grow our economy, cut taxes and regulations, promote made in the U.S.A., champion American energy dominance, and protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”
Lamb responded with thanks to the president, not only for the endorsement but for his work accomplished in just under a year back in office.
“In just nine months, President Trump has truly made America Great Again, and shown what true leadership and courage is all about,” said Lamb. “He has secured our borders and got our economy moving.”
As for Feely, who settled in Arizona after retiring from the NFL in 2014, Trump encouraged him to take on another race.
“I also like Jay Feely very much, and would like to see him run in a different district, or for a different office,” said Trump. “[Lamb] will never let you down!”
Feely was outspoken about his political beliefs throughout his NFL career. During the Obama administration, Feely was a guest on Fox News where he criticized the former president. It was this outspokenness that many believe led to his being cut from the Miami Dolphins despite setting a franchise record.
“I’ve always felt that if I do my job the best I can and I’m one of the best at what I do and am honest with what I say, then people will respect that,” said Feely at the time.
Feely has not issued a statement responding to Trump’s endorsement.
Others fell in line to endorse Lamb after Trump took action.
The House Freedom Fund issued its endorsement of Lamb hours later.
Trump issued his endorsement only a few weeks into Lamb’s candidacy.
Lamb announced his congressional run last month during an interview with Real America’s Voice.
“I believe in America, I believe in our history and our birthright,” said Lamb. “I believe in God, family freedom, I believe in the rule of law.”
Lamb served as Pinal County Sheriff from 2017 to 2024. Lamb ran for Senate last year, but was defeated in the primary by Kari Lake.
The fifth congressional district includes Apache Junction, Gilbert, Queen Creek, San Tan Valley, and parts of Sun Lakes, Chandler, and Mesa.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
