Trump Goes After 2020 Voting Records in Second Swing State

The White House is working to dredge up another election conspiracy with eight months on the clock until midterms.

The Trump administration subpoenaed records related to the 2020 presidential election Monday from Maricopa County, Arizona.

Arizona Senate President Warren Peterson wrote on X that he had complied with a federal grand jury subpoena to turn over records of the county audit to federal authorities.

“The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news,” Peterson wrote, responding to a post in which Donald Trump said the development was “great!” Peterson is currently running to be Arizona’s attorney general, though his candidacy is reportedly in doubt due to the state’s “zombie laws,” which require candidates to have recently practiced law before they announce their candidacy.

Officials in Maricopa County, however, had no idea what Peterson was talking about.

Jason Berry, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told the Phoenix-area radio station KJZZ that the board had not received a subpoena.

“Maricopa County runs elections in accordance with the law. We have not received a subpoena at this time but will cooperate if that were to occur,” Berry said.

The Maricopa County recorder’s office also said it had not received a subpoena, referring questions back to Peterson.

It’s the second state at which the administration has recently taken aim as it continues to sow doubt over Donald Trump’s major political loss. In December, Attorney General Pam Bondi sued Fulton County officials in Georgia, demanding that they turn over “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files.”

Weeks later, the FBI raided an elections office outside of Atlanta.

The Georgia suit was filed the same day as the DOJ announced legal action against four more states—Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nevada—in a sweeping national effort to access sensitive voter data.

Since Trump first planted the seeds of doubt about the results of the 2020 election, a litany of his allies have continued to tend and water the theory—so much so that within a handful of years, refusing to admit that Trump ever lost to Joe Biden has become a fealty test for MAGA membership.

Both Maricopa County and Fulton County have played major roles in Trump’s political conspiracy. But there is no doubt: Trump lost that election by a landslide, coming up short by 38 electoral votes. More evidence that Trump did not win includes the fact that he was not inaugurated in 2021, and did not serve a day as president until he was reelected in 2024.

But for anyone still in doubt, know that the theory has been thoroughly debunked by the president’s own appointees. Trump’s last attorney general, Bill Barr, announced in 2022 that despite an intensive, multi-agency investigation, no evidence of widespread fraud had been discovered that supported the president’s wild claims.

Yet the theory—and Trump’s vast cadre of yes men—persist. Late last year, Trump granted “full, complete, and unconditional” pardons for dozens of the alleged co-conspirators that helped fuel the scheme, including disgraced New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and 72 others.

This story has been updated.