Overview
- Warren Petersen, who leads the Arizona Senate, asked the Justice Department to investigate Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for obstruction and witness tampering after their voter‑data warnings on Tuesday.
- Petersen says he turned over the Arizona Senate’s 2020 election‑audit records to the FBI under a March grand jury subpoena that the U.S. Attorney’s Office described as part of a criminal investigation.
- Mayes and Fontes told county recorders not to release confidential voter information to federal agents and later pressed Petersen to confirm whether protected data, including Address Confidentiality participants and ID numbers, was shared.
- Petersen released a Snell & Wilmer legal opinion arguing he had to comply with the subpoena and that the officials’ guidance was improper, while Mayes and Fontes called his move political and said voter privacy must come first.
- Uncertainty persists over what the CyFir‑linked drives contain and what investigators are probing, which raises questions about how Arizona will handle future federal demands for voter records.