FBI conducting probe of 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona

The FBI is probing past elections in Arizona’s largest county, according to a top Republican state lawmaker, who says he provided the bureau with records related to the 2020 election.

Warren Petersen, the GOP president of the state Senate, said on social media Monday that he recently complied with a federal subpoena for records from a legislative audit of the state’s 2020 election results.

“The FBI has the records,” Petersen added.

The audit itself  has been public for several years, and its results have been widely discredited.

News of the probe emerged after a far-right news outlet and President Donald Trump both claimed the FBI had seized voter data from Maricopa County election agencies — an assertion that echoed the bureau’s January raid on an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia.

Despite the subpoena announced by Petersen, those claims appear to be false.

Both counties have been leading targets in Trump’s attempts to challenge his loss in the 2020 presidential race, as part of his broader campaign to assert control over U.S. elections. As such, FBI efforts to access election records in Maricopa County represent the Trump administration’s latest move to relitigate past votes and undermine future ones.

But sifting facts from false claims about the Maricopa probe has been no simple task.

Sunday night, John Solomon, a conservative columnist known for promoting conspiracy theories, claimed in an article on his far-right outlet Just the News that the FBI was “secretly obtaining a large tranche of voting records” from Maricopa County via a recent grand jury subpoena. He attributed this information to multiple anonymous sources.

Solomon asserted that the FBI’s probe was based on claims of irregularities in the county’s handling of the 2024 election included in a recent report to Congress and a separate report prepared by the GOP-led Arizona state Senate on the 2020 election.

With more than 2.6 million registered voters, Maricopa County represents more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.

Trump, who has long falsely asserted without evidence that his 2020 loss in the county was due to rampant voter fraud, shared the story on social media Monday morning, claiming the seizure was “Great! ! !”

Other MAGA political figures, including Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), also shared the story.

But the agencies that run Maricopa County’s elections and maintain its voter registration data told Democracy Docket in statements that they have not received a subpoena.

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

“The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office will comply with any subpoena request in accordance with applicable state and federal law,” the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said. “At this time, we have not received a subpoena from the FBI.  However, should we receive a lawful subpoena, we will comply fully.”

Still, Petersen’s statement confirmed that the FBI is indeed conducting an elections-related probe into the county. 

“Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,” Petersen said, responding to Trump’s post about Solomon’s story. “The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”

It’s unclear why the FBI would use a subpoena to obtain documents related to the state senate’s 2020 audit, which has been public for several years. 

Conducted by the now-shuttered Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas, the report featured a plethora of unsubstantiated allegations that have been widely debunked and ultimately reinforced former President Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona. 

Stephen Richer, Maricopa County’s recorder from 2021 to 2025, said on social media that the FBI’s subpoena against the Arizona Senate “would likely include all the digital records that the Cyber Ninjas received, or made, pursuant to their months-long review of the 2020 election.”

“That review ended with a silly report, a recount that the Cyber Ninjas themselves called a ‘little screwy,’ and a bankruptcy filing by the company’s CEO,” Richer added.

Previously in 2023, Petersen referred to the Cyber Ninjas audit as being “old news.”

All Voting is Local, an organization that fights for free and fair elections at the state level, quickly slammed the FBI probe.

“This phony ‘investigation’ is the latest chapter in Trump’s vendetta against the American people, particularly those who do not support him,” state director Alex Gulotta said in a statement.

“He’s recycling disproven 2020 conspiracy theories about Arizona’s elections to justify interfering with free and fair elections, especially ahead of the midterms,” Gulotta added. “These are the same types of lies that were used to conduct the FBI raid in Georgia and will likely be used elsewhere, especially as dangerous calls to nationalize our elections continue to arise.”

Since the FBI seized 2020 election records through a raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year based on long refuted conspiracy theories, there have been growing fears that the bureau may conduct similar raids based on debunked claims.

Like in Maricopa County, Trump has also long falsely alleged mass voter fraud in Fulton County during the 2020 election. 

To obtain a search warrant against the Georgia facility, the FBI interviewed infamous anti-voting activists, some of whom now work in the Trump administration.

While the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said it has not yet received a subpoena, it has recently made assertions of non-citizens voting that may have caught the eye of the Trump administration.

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican ally of election deniers including former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, said last month that, during a recent review of voter registration data, his office identified 60 non-citizens who voted in prior elections.

However, Heap conducted the review using the federal government’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, which is notorious for mislabeling naturalized citizens as non-citizens.

Heap’s office made the claim in a press release just hours after he appeared with outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference meant to promote the SAVE America Act, which voting experts have called the most restrictive voting proposals in U.S. history.

Faced with grim polls ahead of the 2026 midterms, Trump is attempting to pressure Senate Republicans to pass the bill, which would disenfranchise millions of Americans by erecting archaic requirements to vote.

The GOP-controlled House passed the bill earlier this year.

Trump has also  aggressively pushed conspiracy theories about past elections to further undermine free and fair elections in the U.S.