In April, the lawyer normal — who was working within the GOP major for a U.S. Senate seat — launched an “Interim Report” claiming that his workplace had found “severe vulnerabilities.” He ignored edits from his personal investigators refuting his assertions.

His workplace then compiled an “Election Evaluate Abstract” in September that systematically refuted accusations of widespread fraud and made clear that not one of the complaining events — from state lawmakers to self-styled “election integrity” teams — had offered any proof to help their claims. Brnovich left workplace final month with out releasing the abstract.

That timeline emerges from paperwork launched to The Put up this week by Brnovich’s successor, Kris Mayes, a Democrat. She mentioned she thought-about the taxpayer-funded investigation closed and, earlier this month, notified leaders on Maricopa County’s governing board that they had been not within the state’s crosshairs.

The data present how Brnovich used his workplace to additional claims about voting in Maricopa County that his personal employees thought-about inaccurate. They counsel that his administration privately disregarded fact-checks supplied by state investigators whereas publicly selling incomplete accounts of the workplace’s work. The innuendo and inaccuracies, circulated not simply within the far reaches of the web however with the imprimatur of the state’s lawyer normal, helped make Arizona an epicenter of mistrust within the democratic course of, eroding confidence not simply within the 2020 vote however in subsequent elections.

The paperwork — two investigative summaries and a draft letter with edits, totaling 41 pages — are removed from an exhaustive file of Brnovich’s investigation. However they fill in particulars concerning the sometimes-enigmatic actions of the state’s former high regulation enforcement officer.

Brnovich didn’t reply to questions on his conduct of the probe, his determination to not launch extra paperwork or variations between his public statements and his workplace’s personal findings.

Brnovich shortly affirmed then-President Trump’s loss in Arizona in November 2020, angering fellow Republicans. And he went on to withstand Trump’s efforts to overturn the vote. But he flirted with claims of fraud as he courted GOP help over the next two years, trumpeting his interim report on a far-right radio present and saying, “It’s irritating for all of us, as a result of I feel everyone knows what occurred in 2020.” It was solely within the ultimate days earlier than the November 2022 midterm election, a number of months after Brnovich had misplaced his Senate major, that he started to denounce politicians who denied Trump’s defeat, calling them “clowns” engaged in a “big grift.”

In releasing supplies that Brnovich’s administration had saved from public view, Mayes mentioned she was reorienting the work of the lawyer normal’s workplace — away from pursuing conspiratorial claims of fraud and towards defending the correct to vote, investigating the few circumstances of wrongdoing that sometimes happen each election and stopping threats in opposition to election staff.

“The folks of Arizona had a proper to know this data earlier than the 2022 election,” Mayes mentioned in an interview. “Maricopa County election officers had a proper to know that they had been cleared of wrongdoing. And each American had a proper to know that the 2020 election in Arizona, which partly determined the presidency, was carried out precisely and pretty.”

The data launched this week signify a fraction of the 1000’s of pages produced by investigators and attorneys throughout the investigation, together with extra materials from drafts of studies and interviews and correspondence with witnesses and election officers. Mayes’s employees is reviewing these paperwork and is redacting delicate data earlier than making them public within the coming months, mentioned Richie Taylor, her spokesperson.

Brnovich’s administration didn’t launch the investigative summaries, which The Put up requested below Arizona’s public data regulation earlier than he left workplace in January. Brnovich and his employees mentioned repeatedly all through the investigation that they had been restricted in what they might disclose because the probe was ongoing.

However his workplace did every so often make public some points of its findings. On Aug. 1, the day earlier than the state’s major election, Brnovich mentioned his workplace had completed its probe of allegations that a whole bunch of votes had been forged within the title of deceased folks. His workplace discovered one occasion. In December 2022, as Brnovich was making ready to go away workplace, an government assistant wrote in an e-mail to The Put up that “no matter transition, we are going to proceed processing and can launch when accomplished.”

The 2020 election in Maricopa County drew intense scrutiny as a result of it’s the state’s largest voting jurisdiction, residence to greater than half of voters, and helped swing Arizona to Joe Biden and ship him the presidency. Brnovich launched the investigation shortly after Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based agency employed by the GOP-led state senate, ended its personal evaluation of the election in September 2021. The months-long legislative evaluation, which was roundly criticized by election consultants, affirmed Trump’s loss within the state. Brnovich was competing on the time in a Senate major contest in opposition to Trump-aligned candidates who mentioned they might have taken steps following the 2020 election to thwart certification of Biden’s victory.

The lawyer normal’s probe stretched via 2022, as Brnovich’s workplace spent greater than 10,000 hours inspecting claims of irregularities, malfeasance and fraud, data present. At one level, the workplace arrange a command middle, and “the evaluation of the audit was made a singular, high-level precedence; all palms had been assigned to work completely on reviewing the audit with different issues being positioned on maintain until a matter required rapid motion on our half,” a report mentioned. Mayes mentioned the workplace has about 60 investigators, all of whom participated within the probe in some unspecified time in the future, together with attorneys and help employees.

By September 2022, a 12 months into the inquiry, the particular investigations part had acquired 638 election-related complaints and deemed 430 of them worthy of investigation. Of these, simply 22 circumstances had been submitted for prosecutorial evaluation; two circumstances involving felons who illegally sought to vote had been prosecuted, resulting in convictions.

Brnovich by no means broadcast the complete findings, declining to shut the books on suspicions raised by an interim report with characterizations straight rebutted by his personal workplace.

The interim report, delivered within the type of a letter to Karen Fann, then the Republican president of the state senate, was met by Trump allies as affirmation that voting in Maricopa County was corrupted. The letter, despatched on April 6, highlighted administration of early voting, saying, “We are able to report that there are problematic systemwide points that relate to early poll dealing with and verification.”

However Brnovich’s employees took situation together with his criticism of the dealing with and verification of ballots, writing in a draft of the letter, “we didn’t uncover any criminality or fraud having been dedicated on this space throughout the 2020 normal election.”

The employees feedback had been made in blue kind, beneath disputed statements highlighted in yellow, and included in a doc despatched by a chief particular agent within the felony division to a number of others within the workplace on April 1. That doc was forwarded to Brnovich’s high aide. The topic line was, “Extra Issues for Draft Interim Report.” It’s not clear who else reviewed the doc.

The issues had been largely not mirrored in Brnovich’s ultimate model.

Brnovich speculated that a lot of early ballots within the 2020 contest could have prevented county officers from correctly verifying signatures on the ballots, although his employees suggested him that the county had rigorous coaching and processes, in addition to extra employees, to make sure correct verification.

Brnovich went forward together with his declare that “Maricopa County had not at all times well timed and totally responded to our requests for data,” although employees suggested within the draft doc that it was the “collective opinion of … investigators” that the county “was cooperative and attentive to our requests.”

When Brnovich launched his interim report, it was not accompanied by a fuller “Investigation Abstract,” ready by the assistant chief particular agent and dated March 8. The 24-page abstract described a variety of allegations probed by the lawyer normal’s workplace, together with improper signature verification, misuse of drop containers and incomplete entry to data for the state senate’s audit. That report was additionally shared with Brnovich’s high aide, Taylor mentioned.

Nearly all allegations had been deemed unfounded, in line with the abstract. A number of points had been listed as undetermined, together with a declare by Cyber Ninjas that sure recordsdata had been deleted by the county; investigators had but to evaluation all archived knowledge.

The abstract revealed that there had been procedural violations in a single occasion — involving the retrieval of ballots from drop containers. The state didn’t discover that the county had mishandled ballots, in line with the abstract, however that it had not at all times correctly recorded sure particulars, such because the time of retrieval.

Relating to signature verification, the difficulty highlighted in Brnovich’s interim report, the ready abstract discovered, “No improper Election Procedures had been found throughout the Signature Verification evaluation.”

Later the identical 12 months, Brnovich’s workplace got here to additional conclusions concerning the absence of any foundation for claims of systematic fraud, however saved these findings personal as properly.

On Sept. 19, a couple of month after Brnovich had misplaced the GOP nomination for Senate to a MAGA-aligned candidate who insisted that “Trump received in 2020,” a memo summarized the work of investigators. The memo, drawn up by a chief particular agent in anticipation of a ultimate report, was not shared with workplace management since no such ultimate report was ever drafted or requested, Taylor mentioned.

The memo, titled “Election Evaluate Abstract,” emphasised that, “no proof of election fraud, manipulation of the election course of, or any cases of organized/coordinated fraud was supplied by any of the complaining events.”

Of the extra conspicuous claims examined by investigators — together with these circulated by Cyber Ninjas, Texas-based True the Vote and others — the teams “didn’t present any proof to help their allegations,” the memo concluded. The knowledge they did present “was speculative in lots of cases and when investigated by our brokers and help employees, was discovered to be inaccurate.”

The memo additionally reported that some high-profile Republican officers — who had publicly made fantastical claims of fraud — didn’t reiterate these assertions below questioning by brokers, once they had been topic to a state regulation prohibiting false reporting to regulation enforcement.

Mark Finchem, then a state consultant who later ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state, had repeatedly claimed {that a} “supply” instructed him that greater than 30,000 fictitious votes had appeared throughout the normal election in a county south of Phoenix. However when questioned by brokers, he didn’t repeat the declare, “particularly stating he didn’t have any proof of fraud and that he didn’t want to take up our time.” Finchem supplied 4 ballots that he mentioned mirrored a flawed voting course of, however these ballots had not been counted and had been unopened.

Sonny Borrelli, a GOP state senator who had alleged a coverup of election irregularities, didn’t repeat these claims throughout an interview however did present what he mentioned was the title of a deceased voter, the memo acknowledged. Investigators discovered that the alleged deceased voter was alive, had not voted and was not a resident of Arizona.

Investigators sought a gathering with Wendy Rogers, a Republican state senator and vocal election denier who now chairs the chamber’s elections committee. However Rogers refused to satisfy, the report mentioned, “saying she was ready to see the ‘perp stroll’ of those that dedicated fraud throughout the election.”

No perp stroll resulted from allegations offered to the unit, together with that aerial objects flipped votes; that election staff scrubbed laborious drives; and that satellites below the management of the Italian navy penetrated vote-counting machines.