by Matthew Holloway | Aug 6, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Three of Arizona’s Republican Congressional delegation have called for accountability from the FBI over the rapidly evolving scandal around the ‘Durham Annex,’ a cache of recently released records exposed by FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard.
Following the initial release, Congressmen Abe Hamadeh, Eli Crane, and Andy Biggs all offered comments via X, along with media interviews uniformly calling for accountability from the Department of Justice for the monumental scandal, which President Donald Trump described as “a FAILED coup.”
Gabbard started the proverbial ball rolling with a post to X, saying, “Whistleblower reveals how they were threatened by a supervisor to go along with the Obama-directed Russia hoax ‘intelligence’ assessment, even though they knew it was not credible or accurate. The Whistleblower refused.
“Yesterday we released the Whistleblower’s firsthand account of what happened in the crafting of the January 2017 ICA, their yearslong efforts to expose the egregious manipulation and manufacturing of intelligence carried out at the highest levels of government and the IC (detailed in our previous releases) and how they were repeatedly ignored.”
The releases by DNI Gabbard and FBI Director Patel indicated that the Hillary Clinton campaign allegedly approved a plan to falsely link President Donald Trump to Russia as a distraction from her email scandal, with the FBI failing to adequately investigate or disclose key information, including misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The document highlights U.S. intelligence assessments of Russian intercepts suggesting Clinton’s involvement in stirring up a scandal. Later email releases showed clear ties from the Clinton Campaign to Leonard Benardo, Senior Vice President of billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
Congressman Crane made several posts to X over the course of the day, calling for accountability. He quoted Leading Report’s note that said, “Declassified files show Hillary Clinton personally signed off on plan to link Trump to Russia in 2016, ” and he wrote, “And the swamp went along with it. We the People expect ACCOUNTABILITY.”
Sharing the whistleblower account Crane added, “This is a MASSIVE scandal. There has to be accountability.”
Responding to a report from John Solomon, Crane commented, “A historic scandal. And it’ll likely be ignored by the very mainstream media figures that perpetuated the hoax in the first place.”
In response to additional subsequent releases from FBI Director Patel, he wrote “Keep releasing. Then we have to hold them accountable.”
Congressman and Arizona Gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs similarly demanded “consequences for everyone who conspired against the American people.”
He wrote, “It was planned from the start. Americans were manipulated by the Left and the media for years. Those of us who called out the stench from the start were painted as conspiracy theorists. There must be severe consequences for everyone who conspired against the American people.”
In an interview with Garret Lewis of The Afternoon Addiction on 550 KFYI, Rep. Abe Hamadeh was clear: “There has to be justice. There has to be accountability. People need to be locked up.”
“It is the biggest scandal in American history, and that’s why President Trump won back in November,” Hamadeh added. “Because this is a repudiation of the corrupt cabal that has held a chokehold on our country for so long.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Apr 1, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
With the help of Hillary Clinton’s Russiagate hoax lawyer Marc Elias, the Phoenix-based Latino activist organization Mi Familia Vota filed a lawsuit Thursday to challenge Arizona’s newly-enacted law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. Republican legislators and Governor Doug Ducey have reiterated that the legislation, HB2492, doesn’t apply retroactively to Arizonans who registered to vote without providing proof of citizenship before 2004, meaning those individuals won’t have to re-register to vote. There’s contention to that provision in question: opponents of the law argue that the new definition of a qualified voter requires all registered voters to have submitted proof of citizenship.
The complaint filed by Elias on behalf of Mi Familia Vota alleged that HB2492 was “confusing, discriminatory, and unconstitutional,” as well as “voter suppression,” claiming it would prevent those already registered without proof of citizenship from voting. The complaint also claimed that HB2492 shared the same faults as Proposition 200, a voter-approved initiative in 2004 that required county recorders to reject any application for registration that didn’t include satisfactory evidence of U.S. citizenship.
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck down Proposition 200, ruling that it was a violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) which doesn’t require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. However, as Arizona Free Enterprise Deputy Director Greg Blackie explained during the State Senate hearing of the bill, this law was designed to fall within the bounds of SCOTUS precedent because the NVRA doesn’t prohibit states from denying registration if there’s proof that the applicant isn’t a citizen.
Mi Familia Vota’s complaint further insisted that the new law would undermine early mail-in voting, due to the fact that it would negate the ease of voting provided by that method. The complaint also claimed that around 200,000 registered voters would have to locate and present proof of citizenship in order to vote. For that claim, the complaint cited an opinion piece in the Arizona Republic, which didn’t make a definitive claim that those voters would be scrutinized.
“If you registered to vote in Arizona before 2004 and never provided proof that you’re a U.S. citizen — a number that includes close to 200,000 voters who got their driver’s licenses before October 1, 1996, in the days before proof of citizenship was required — you, too, could be suspect. In the eyes of the GOP-run Arizona legislature, that is,” stated the article. [emphasis added]
Setting aside the potential difficulties presented to voters, the complaint argued that Arizona had no compelling interest to justify requiring proof of citizenship of its voters. It claimed that the lack of proof of non-citizens who’d voted proved that point.
In terms of requested relief, the complaint asked the court to find the new law to be in violation of the rights to vote and due process as outlined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Mar 25, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Democratic Party’s “go-to lawyer,” Marc Elias, promised he would sue Arizona over its election integrity laws passed recently by the state legislature if Governor Doug Ducey signs them into law. Elias was sued by former President Donald Trump on Thursday for his role in the Russigate hoax.
Elias has an expansive and varied portfolio of nearly 30 years among Democrats and corporate capitalists like the major Big Tech companies Facebook and Google. He played an integral role in Hillary Clinton’s Russiagate hoax. He hired intelligence firm Fusion-GPS for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Fusion-GPS then obtained the debunked dossier from former British spy Christopher Steele, dubbed the “Steele dossier,” who relied on a Russian analyst living in Virginia, Igor Danchenko, for the majority of its information.
As AZ Free News reported earlier this month, Elias already submitted a motion to intervene in a case challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s no-excuse mail-in voting system.
Elias has filed suit in numerous states over their new election integrity laws. He characterized Arizona’s most recent legislation passed, HB2492 requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, as voter suppression and disenfranchisement. The bill mainly impacts those who register using federal forms, which don’t require proof of citizenship.
Other laws that Elias has watched under threat of lawsuit include: HB2237, HB2238, HB2170, and HB2243, which recently passed their Senate committees, and SB1058, which hasn’t been passed by the Senate yet.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
