Attorney General Kris Mayes, who is prosecuting the alternate electors for Donald Trump from 2020 as well as Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby for delaying the canvassing of that election due to election irregularities, may find herself on the other side of prosecution. Founder Mike Davis of the Article III Project, which defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law, posted on X that Mayes could go to prison due to obstructing the incoming president.
He said, “Dear @AZAGMayes: You disenfranchised AZ voters and stole your election from @AbrahamHamadeh. Now you’re plotting to overturn the will of American voters and illegally obstruct President Trump’s immigration mandate? Want to go to prison? 8 U.S.C. § 132.”
Dear @AZAGMayes:
You disenfranchised AZ voters and stole your election from @AbrahamHamadeh.
Now you’re plotting to overturn the will of American voters and illegally obstruct President Trump’s immigration mandate?
Want to go to prison?
8 U.S.C. § 132https://t.co/gVXsO7CCMm
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) December 26, 2024
He included a link to an article in The Guardian about Mayes stating she will oppose one of Trump’s policies on illegal immigration. The Biden administration has looked the other way at illegal immigrants up to the age of 18, even though many of them recently came into the country alone and on their own, close to adult age. Trump attempted to stop the lawbreaking, which began as a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) under President Barack Obama, but a narrow decision by the Supreme Court prevented him.
Republican states filed a lawsuit in 2023 challenging the policy, objecting to the Biden administration’s attempt to codify it into law. A trial court judge agreed, and the case is now on appeal at the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It is very likely to end up at the Supreme Court, where the makeup of justices has shifted to the right due to Trump’s appointments.
The federal law Davis cited, 8 U.S.C. 132, makes it a crime for illegal immigrants to return to the U.S. after being deported or prohibited from entering.
Mayes told The Guardian that Trump’s policy would be a “bright red line for me. I will not stand for an attempt to deport them, or undermine them.” She also said, “If Trump tries to engage in family separation, or build mass deportation camps, I will do everything I can legally to fight that. That is not happening in Arizona, not on our soil.”
Davis’s other remarks in his X post referred to the 2022 election, where Mayes defeated Trump-endorsed Abe Hamadeh by 280 votes. Although the race was close, judges refused to authorize a full hand recount or allow consideration of overvotes in counties other than Pinal County where many overvotes were discovered, which decreased Mayes lead to 280. A poll by the moderate pollster Highground conducted a month before the election showed Hamadeh ahead of Mayes by 5 points.
Mayes’ prosecution of Arizona’s alternate electors was based on a legal memo provided to her by the far left States United Democracy Center. Many of the accusations she made against the defendants were incorrect.
Despite the election of Trump, Mayes vowed immediately after the election to continue prosecuting the electors and their related associates, who include Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, his ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani.
“I have no intention of dropping that case,” Mayes said during an interview with The Hill. She complained that “these individuals who engaged in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2020 should be held accountable. So we won’t be cowed. We won’t be intimidated.”
During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Trump’s nominee for director of the FBI, Kash Patel, said he will go after those who engaged in corruption involving the 2020 election. “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” he said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
In May, the Arizona House Executive Oversight Committee released an investigative report finding that Mayes “Abused Power, Neglected Legal Duties, and Committed Malfeasance in Office.” One of the findings was that she “unjustifiably threatened the Mohave County Board of Supervisors with personal criminal and civil penalties if they voted against her wishes.” Mayes threatened to criminally prosecute the supervisors if they conducted a hand count for the 2024 election and future elections. As a result, the supervisors backed down from the proposed hand counts.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Mike Davis” by Mike Davis and “AG Kris Mayes” by AG Kris Mayes.
