DOJ dispatched criminal prosecutors, FBI agent to monitor Arizona’s primary, documents reveal

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) tapped criminal prosecutors and an FBI official to watch voters in Arizona’s primary elections earlier this year in a major break from past norms, according to records reviewed by Democracy Docket.

According to the documents, which were initially obtained by Democracy Forward*, the DOJ sent at least six different prosecuting attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Arizona to monitor the battleground state’s July 21 primaries.

The prosecutors were dispatched to Maricopa and Pima Counties, the state’s two most populous counties, which have been at the center of election conspiracy theories since Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, has said the monitors will be fulfilling their traditional role of ensuring access to voting. But the inclusion of prosecutors and an FBI official — particularly in Arizona — raises concerns that the monitors will be used to restrict access or intimidate voters.

Since Trump’s reelection last year, the FBI and the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have opened probes into the 2020 vote in the state. Meanwhile, the DOJ has threatened the state’s top election official, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), with criminal charges.

At least one of the officials dispatched in July, Clay Rehrig, was an FBI special agent detailed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Though detailed, Rehrig was still a sworn federal law enforcement officer at the time he was selected to monitor the primary vote in Maricopa.

Alongside Rehrig, the DOJ also tapped as monitors Marcus Shand, Joseph Nwoga, Joseph Rieu, Gordon Davenport, Mary Sue Feldmeier and Adam Rossi — all of whom identify or were identified by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona as criminal attorneys.

The DOJ dispatched criminal attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona even though that office has a dedicated Civil Division with civil attorneys who function similarly to the attorneys in Main Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

The decision to send criminal attorneys and law enforcement officials to watch elections marks an abnormal departure from previous election monitoring efforts.

Past departments have used the DOJ’s election monitoring program to ensure voters have adequate access to polls as required by federal voting laws. To that end, they have sent civil attorneys or legal support staff from the Voting Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. 

In a statement to Democracy Docket, an unnamed DOJ spokesperson said all “department attorneys, including prosecutors, will serve as election monitors.”

The spokesperson claimed that this has happened “in many past elections.” However, the department’s historical norm was that election monitors were career civil attorneys from the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, not prosecutors.

“All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process,” the spokesperson said. “Every monitor has the same role: observe for potential violations of federal law and report concerns to the Department, which the Department will review after Election Day and act where appropriate.”

“Monitors will not identify themselves as prosecutors,” they added.

The spokesperson did not address why an FBI special agent — who was not a department attorney — was tapped as a monitor.

Current DOJ leadership has also claimed that the department’s poll watching efforts are also meant to ensure accessibility and compliance with federal law. But the department’s monitoring push comes at a moment when it is exerting unprecedented pressure and scrutiny on state elections as part of Trump’s attempt to uncover fraud before the midterm elections.

Election monitors have no statutory authority to enter election sites without consent from state election officials. Without the state’s consent, they can only stand outside polls and interview voters as they are leaving or entering.

However, monitors recently deployed by the DOJ, such as those sent to Wyoming in August, appear to have attempted to observe aspects of the election process outside the scope of their authority as monitors operating under federal voting rights laws.

The DOJ plans to dispatch 1,000 federal election monitors for the upcoming general election. Department officials have claimed that it will be the largest federal monitoring effort in U.S. history.

Dhillon claimed last month that the department is close to enlisting all 1,000. But she and the department so far have not disclosed who the monitors may be or where precisely in the department they will be recruited from.

At most, Dhillon has said the monitors will be department lawyers and other “trained legal staff.”

Voting rights experts and former DOJ officials have questioned the department’s capacity to deploy 1,000 election monitors due to the exodus from the Civil Rights Division and DOJ since Trump returned to office.

However, the documents obtained by Democracy Forward indicate that the DOJ is no longer strictly relying on civil attorneys to monitor elections.

*Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias is the chair of Democracy Forward’s board.