Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) is calling for greater accountability over decisions by four prosecuting offices to decline charges against a hacker who admitted to exploiting a Maricopa County website and extracting approximately 633,000 voter registration records shortly before the 2020 election.
During an interview with Just the News, Hamadeh said he wants to know which prosecutors were responsible for the decisions after the FBI investigated the breach, identified the suspect, and obtained an admission.
“I’m still curious to know, you know, which attorneys at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, in Maricopa County, Pinal County, declined charges, especially when the FBI referred it and had this case pretty much handed on a platter to these prosecuting agencies, and they all refused,” Hamadeh said.
Every week, more election vulnerabilities get exposed.
Thank God @POTUS, the most transparent president in American history, is finally getting the truth out.
Congressman Hamadeh joined @jsolomonReports to break down the latest Arizona election integrity bombshell.
The…
— Office of Congressman Abe Hamadeh (@RepAbeHamadeh) August 8, 2026
The comments followed the release of declassified FBI records detailing the investigation into the 2020 intrusion. In an Aug. 4 letter, FBI Director Kash Patel said investigators confirmed voter records were illegally extracted from a Maricopa County site and identified a suspect who admitted committing the offense.
According to the FBI, the suspect discovered a vulnerability in the county’s voter registration system, wrote a PowerShell script to exploit it, and illegally scraped approximately 633,000 voter files. About 930 contained sensitive, nonpublic information, Patel wrote.
The affected records included full names, voter identification numbers, and party affiliations. Approximately 930 contained sensitive information involving domestic violence victims, judges, and law enforcement officers. The document said Social Security numbers were not included in the information obtained.
The vulnerability allowed an intruder to place voter identification numbers directly into the website URL and bypass its normal authentication process, according to the FBI. The PowerShell script then automated sequential requests for voter registration information.
Hamadeh said the scale of the breach raises questions about the cybersecurity capabilities of less-populous jurisdictions.
“Maricopa County, which isn’t just the biggest county in Arizona, it’s the fourth biggest county in the entire country,” Hamadeh said during the interview. “So if you have these people, these hackers able to exfiltrate into the data systems of a big county like Maricopa, imagine what they can do to some of these smaller counties that don’t have the cyber tech and the counter cyber measures that Maricopa County may have.”
An FBI interview summary said the suspect first discovered the vulnerability around September 2020 after noticing that his voter identification number appeared in the website URL. He tested other seven-digit numbers and discovered that he could access other voters’ registration information.
The suspect then developed the PowerShell script and initially downloaded between 100 and 1,000 records during a trial run before expanding the operation, according to the FBI. He estimated that he ultimately downloaded between 1 million and 2 million records, while investigators documented approximately 633,000 exfiltrated voter records.
The suspect stored information on personal hard drives and a Google Cloud account before deleting it after becoming concerned about law enforcement consequences, according to the FBI report. He described himself to investigators as a “hacker or tinkerer” and accepted responsibility for his actions.
FBI agents executed a search warrant at the suspect’s Fountain Hills residence on Nov. 5, 2020. According to the bureau’s May 2023 case-closure document, investigators analyzed seized devices and obtained records involving the suspect’s bank, social media, and email accounts.
Investigators concluded that he had developed and operated the PowerShell script and later deleted the extracted information. The FBI said investigators found no indication of domestic or foreign influence over his actions.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona declined prosecution. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office also declined the case and advised the FBI that it had presented the matter to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, which also declined. Investigators then presented the case to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office, which likewise declined prosecution, according to the closure memorandum.
The federal declination occurred July 12, 2021. The released documents do not identify when the other three offices made their decisions.
Because all four prosecuting offices declined the matter, investigators requested closure of the case in May 2023.
Hamadeh said accountability in the case remains unresolved.
“The win that the American people had here in Arizona, especially what we’re still trying to get, is justice,” Hamadeh said during the interview.
Hamadeh also described the intrusion as a “direct attack on democracy” and referred to manipulation of voter files during his remarks. The released FBI documents establish that voter registration information was accessed and exfiltrated; they do not show that the suspect altered voter records, accessed ballots, or changed votes. Just the News also reported that there is no evidence votes were changed as a result of the intrusion.
The newly released records contrast with what Maricopa County officials publicly said about the incident during the aftermath of the 2020 election. In July 2021, county officials told Capitol Media Services that the intruder had accessed a voter registration website but had not penetrated the server storing voter registration records, and said only voter registration numbers had been obtained without access to personal information. The FBI records released this week state that approximately 633,000 voter registration records were exfiltrated and that about 930 contained sensitive voter information.
Hamadeh has made election security a legislative priority in Congress. He urged the Senate in July to pass the SAVE America Act, after the House previously passed the measure and subsequently advanced its provisions through other legislative vehicles. The legislation would require proof of U.S. citizenship for federal voter registration and identification to cast a ballot in federal elections.
The Democratic nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Teresa Leyba Ruiz, says Arizona’s school choice funds should be reverted back to the public schools.
Ruiz, the former president of Glendale Community College, told “The Mike Broomhead Show” on KTAR that Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) funds should be converted to public school funding under her administration of the Arizona Department of Education (ADE).
Ruiz said that she would like to use ESA funds to pay for a literacy coach in every single classroom. Ruiz said if Arizona spent more on its schools, parents would be “fighting” to stay in public schools instead of leaving.
“Right now, in Arizona, there’s over $350 million dollars being stockpiled for future use, for college perhaps. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we took that money and invested it in our schools?” said Ruiz. “If we just invested in our schools — remember this is 50 years of underfunding and not prioritizing our public schools.”
The state spent more than $13.4 billion on public schools in the past fiscal year, an increase of $300 million from the prior fiscal year. Per-pupil spending was more than $12,000, and the average teacher salary was more than $65,600.
Instructional spending declined for the third consecutive year to 52%, the lowest rate since state monitoring began in 2001.
Ruiz also told KTAR on the “AZ Political” podcast that ADE would save money by creating an automated denial system for ESA funds.
“Over $650 million of our taxpayer dollars have flown out the door, unchecked and unchallenged. No oversight on the front end, and that’s something we would put an end to,” said Ruiz. “We’re talking about having a modern, automated system that can quickly process transactions that are appropriate and flag and stop inappropriate transactions.”
According to the current superintendent, Tom Horne, ADE automatically approved expenditures under $2,000 due to lack of staffing. Problematic expenditures under that cap would be subject to review post-approval.
Ruiz said it was for a lack of leadership that Horne had that problem. She claimed that ADE could have shifted resources from one aspect of the department to another to make up for understaffing within the ESA expenditure approval team.
Ruiz served on President Joe Biden’s Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics, specifically the committee for Advancing Higher Education and Hispanic Serving Institutions. The commission was part of the Biden administration’s reestablishment of the Hispanic-Serving Institution programming, which used federal funding to incentivize higher education institutions to intentionally prioritize Hispanic students within admissions.
Ruiz’s commission resulted in the July 2024 creation of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity Through Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which formally prioritized Hispanic-serving institutions through federal recruitment, federal resources, and federal funding.
The commission also successfully convinced the Biden administration to expand federal TRIO programming to illegal alien students classified as Dreamers; TRIO programming has historically provided low-income American citizens with support services such as college campus visits, tutoring, and assistance with college and financial aid applications.
Ruiz also served in the Aspen Institute’s 2018-2019 Presidential Fellows Program; as reported previously, the Aspen Institute played a major role in covering up the Hunter Biden laptop scandal ahead of the 2020 election.
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Federal immigration officers arrested a Haitian national in Massachusetts who entered the United States through the Arizona border during the Biden administration. He had been released into the country and now faces pending charges involving child pornography, indecent assault, and extortion.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that officers from its Boston field office arrested Pierre Andy Jean-Louis, 20, during a vehicle stop in Fall River, Massachusetts, on July 18.
Jean-Louis has pending Massachusetts charges for possession of child pornography, indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14, and extortion by threat of injury, according to ICE. The agency has not reported that Jean-Louis has been convicted of the charges.
“There is no person more disturbing than one who stands accused of preying upon the most innocent members of our communities,” acting ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston Field Office Director David Wesling said in a statement. “ICE Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by working tenaciously to remove alleged child sex predators from our New England neighborhoods.”
ICE said U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended Jean-Louis after he entered the country near Nogales, Arizona, on Sept. 24, 2024.
CBP subsequently released him into the country under a two-year grant of immigration parole.
Immigration parole allows the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily permit a noncitizen applying for admission to enter the United States on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit. Federal law states that parole does not constitute formal admission into the United States.
Jean-Louis’ release occurred approximately four months before former President Joe Biden left office in January 2025.
Following the July vehicle stop, ICE officers took Jean-Louis into custody and served him with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin highlighted the Arizona connection, reporting that Jean-Louis had been “caught and released” at the border before his arrest in Massachusetts.
NEW: ICE Boston announces they've arrested a Haitian illegal alien alleged pedophile who has pending charges for possession of child porn, indecent assault, and extortion by threat of injury. Pierre Andy Jean-Louis, was caught and released at the AZ border by the Biden admin on… pic.twitter.com/QugKxM7uS5
ICE described Jean-Louis as an illegal alien from Haiti. The agency did not identify the circumstances under which CBP approved the two-year parole or provide additional information concerning his travel from Arizona to Massachusetts.
The U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July as a 53,000-job decline in government employment more than offset a 30,000-job increase in private-sector payrolls, according to new federal labor data released Friday.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July Employment Situation report found total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 23,000 after increasing by a revised 20,000 jobs in June. The unemployment rate declined from 4.2% to 4.1%.
The Republican side of the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Arizona Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ-01), highlighted the figures Friday in its monthly employment update. Schweikert has chaired the bicameral committee since March 2025.
In July, jobs decreased by 23K jobs (+30K private sector, -53K govt). At the same time, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1pp to 4.1% while the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.1pp to 61.4%. The broadest measure of unemployment remained unchanged at 7.9%.…
— Joint Economic Committee Republicans (@JECRepublicans) August 7, 2026
Private-sector payrolls increased by 30,000 jobs during July, while government employment declined by 53,000, according to the Joint Economic Committee’s employment update. Private education and health services gained 25,000 jobs and construction gained 22,000, while state and local government employment declined by 50,000 and leisure and hospitality lost 40,000 jobs.
The decline in the unemployment rate came as the civilian labor force decreased by 264,000 people in July, from approximately 169.36 million to 169.09 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The number of employed people fell by 87,000, while the number counted as unemployed decreased by 178,000. The labor force participation rate slipped from 61.5% to 61.4%.
BLS reported that labor force participation has declined by 0.7 percentage points since January, while the employment-to-population ratio has fallen by 0.5 percentage points over the same period. Approximately 5.9 million people outside the labor force said they wanted a job in July.
The broader U-6 measure of labor underutilization remained at 7.9%. The measure includes unemployed workers, people marginally attached to the labor force and those working part time for economic reasons.
The July payroll decline came in well below economists’ expectations. The Dow Jones consensus had projected an increase of approximately 83,000 jobs.
BLS reported that the decline in local government employment was concentrated in education, which lost 50,000 jobs. Retail trade declined by 19,000 jobs, while financial activities continued a downward trend with a loss of 14,000. Health care added approximately 22,000 jobs during the month, led by an 18,000-job increase in ambulatory health care services.
Federal government employment has fallen by 252,000 jobs since July 2025, according to the JEC, while private education and health services added approximately 550,000 jobs over the same period. Professional and business services increased by 115,000 jobs year over year, while financial activities declined by 114,000.
The latest report also included another round of substantial downward revisions to earlier job estimates.
May payroll growth, initially reported at 172,000 jobs, has now been revised to 63,000, a cumulative reduction of 109,000 jobs from the original estimate. BLS had previously revised May’s figure to 129,000 before Friday’s report reduced it again to 63,000. June employment was revised from a gain of 57,000 jobs to 20,000.
BLS said the latest revisions alone reduced previously reported May and June employment by a combined 103,000 jobs. The agency said monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies and recalculated seasonal factors.
Annual wage growth slowed in July. Average hourly earnings for employees on private nonfarm payrolls reached $37.62, up 3.2% from a year earlier. Average hourly earnings for private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees stood at $32.40. The average private-sector workweek remained unchanged at 34.3 hours.
Separate BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data released Tuesday showed 7.4 million job openings nationwide in June, with the openings rate at 4.4%. Hiring remained at approximately 5.3 million, while total separations were little changed at 5.4 million.
Arizona’s most recent state-level employment figures currently cover June. The Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity’s June employment report showed the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from 4.8% in May to 4.9% in June, compared with the national rate of 4.2% that month.
Arizona’s labor force decreased by 20,204 people from May to June and by 73,302, or 1.9%, compared with June 2025. The state nevertheless recorded 27,900 more nonfarm jobs on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis than it had one year earlier.
BLS data show Arizona had approximately 3.28 million seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs in June, an increase of about 23,600 jobs, or 0.7%, from a year earlier. Construction employment was up 1.5% year over year, while government employment was down 1.5%.
Arizona’s July employment figures are scheduled for release on August 21.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ proposed ballot language for Proposition 145 violates Arizona law, blocking Fontes from using the language on the November ballot.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-LD29) and Senate President Warren Petersen (R-LD14), who challenged the ballot language for the proposed constitutional amendment concerning Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) for children of military families.
Montenegro and Petersen alleged that Fontes’ proposed language improperly characterized Proposition 145 by informing voters that approving the measure would also nullify Proposition 212, a separate ballot initiative that would make changes to Arizona’s ESA program.
Petersen and Montenegro sought an injunction preventing Fontes from using the proposed descriptive title and “yes/no” language on the official ballot.
Fontes’ proposed language stated that a “yes” vote would amend the Arizona Constitution to “nullify Proposition 212, which imposes spending and income limits” on ESAs.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David McDowell ruled that the language did not comply with A.R.S. § 19-125(D), which requires ballot descriptions to explain the effect a measure would have on existing law.
“The reference to Proposition 212 in the title and the ‘yes/no’ language is not a reference to existing law,” McDowell wrote in his ruling.
Because Proposition 212 is a proposed initiative that voters will consider in November, rather than an existing law, McDowell determined that Fontes could not include a reference to its potential nullification in the official ballot language for Proposition 145.
The court therefore enjoined the Secretary of State from using the proposed title and “yes/no” language for Proposition 145 on the official ballot.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Arizona will be home to a new facility to combat screwworms following intervention by Republican Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-05).
Brooke Rollins, the secretary of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), announced the new sterile fly dispersal facility at the Douglas Port of Entry last week. The facility will target the burgeoning threat of the New World screwworm, which feed on the living tissue of warm-blooded animals.
The USDA pledged a $25 million investment toward the new facility as part of preparedness measures to reopen the port to livestock trade later this month. The facility will also benefit from existing investments from Texas, Mexico, and Panama.
Biggs predicted in a press release that the new facility would further improve the already significant decline in New World screwworm cases over the past year.
“Arizona is leading the way in prevention efforts, and I am grateful that this administration answered my call for assistance,” said Biggs. “I know how hard our state’s ranchers and farmers work for America’s economy and supply chain, which is why I’m doing all I can to protect their cattle.”
The USDA and the Arizona Department of Agriculture will determine the location and operational plan for the facility. The USDA estimated that construction of the facility “could be completed in as little as several months.”
According to the USDA, over the last year its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has worked alongside Arizona officials to trap and submit approximately 1,000 flies for testing — none of which were identified as the New World screwworm.
The southern livestock ports are slated for coordinated, phased reopening contingent upon Mexico’s continued adherence to the administration’s Joint Action Plan to combat the New World screwworm. The USDA selected the Douglas Port of Entry as the first to reopen due to the reported strength of livestock in adjacent Sonora, Mexico, and the port’s ability to implement enhanced inspection protocols.
The USDA announced the first confirmed case of New World screwworm in early June. Days afterwards, Biggs led fellow congressmen Abraham Hamadeh (AZ-08), Eli Crane (AZ-02), Paul Gosar (AZ-09), and Juan Ciscomani (AZ-04) in a letter advising Rollins that Arizona was uniquely positioned to assist USDA response efforts in combatting the burgeoning screwworm threat.
In that letter, the congressmen identified the state’s historic Douglas sterile fly facility site and scientific capabilities within the University of Arizona and the Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
“[The site] remains a strategically valuable location for future production capacity and strengthens Arizona’s ability to support national containment efforts,” stated the congressmen. “The state’s border access, transportation networks, livestock expertise, and university-led research efforts position Arizona to complement USDA’s ongoing investments and make our state an essential partner in preventing an outbreak, safeguarding producers, and strengthening long-term regional stability before this pest can take hold on American soil.”
According to Cochise County officials, a city librarian with the Douglas Public Library, Margaret White, uncovered records earlier this year revealing that Cochise County had helped uncover the sterile insect technique that ultimately eradicated the New World screwworm from the 1960s through the 1980s.
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