Election workers tabulate and adjudicate remaining ballots at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 6, 2024. (Rebecca Noble – AFP / Getty Images)
By Randy DeSoto March 9, 2026 at 2:26pm
President Donald Trump shared a news article on Monday revealing that the FBI has seized election records from Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes the Phoenix metro area.
Arizona Senate President Warren Peterson confirmed that he had turned over 2020 election records his office possessed, but records the FBI seized also reportedly included those from the 2024 election.
Peterson posted on social media, “President Trump is 100% correct. 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. The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”
President Trump is 100% correct.
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. The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/C2T202VgZP
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) March 9, 2026
An article from Just the News that Trump shared reported, “The sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury probe, said FBI agents are receiving gigabytes of electronic election data from Maricopa County, about a month after the bureau first disclosed an investigation into election irregularities by raiding a warehouse near Atlanta and seizing ballots from the 2020 election conducted in Fulton County, Georgia’s largest metropolis.”
Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon told Real America’s News, “The FBI has decided that the history of Maricopa County is problematic. Under federal law, a county or a state must administer the election the way their state laws require. If they don’t, it is a federal legal violation. This is why they raided Fulton County, another place with a long history of irregularities and misconduct, and quite frankly, just incompetent election counting.”
Solomon noted that the election records are not just from 2020, but also 2024, when Trump carried Maricopa County with 51 percent of the vote to Democrat Kamala Harris’s 48 percent. The president won the state of Arizona overall 52.2 percent to 46.7 percent, his widest margin of any of the seven swing states. Joe Biden flipped the county, which Trump carried in 2016, into his win column in the 2020 election.
“But there was a discovery that was made by congressional observers,” Solomon said of the 2024 election. “Every year, the House Administration Committee sends observers — one Democrat, one Republican — to various voting centers.”
JOHN SOLOMON: The FBI has decided that the election history of Maricopa County is problematic and has seized election results as voting probe expands.@jsolomonReports pic.twitter.com/sbI10Mc4sY
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) March 9, 2026
He explained that reports from the observers, along with irregularities seen in Maricopa County in 2020 and 2022, prompted the FBI investigation.
“They are going to go through that data looking for some of the telltale signs that were in this congressional report,” Solomon said regarding the FBI’s investigators.
The office of Rep. Abe Hamadeh, a Republican from Arizona, posted the Just the News story and stated, “In June last year, Congressman Hamadeh wrote to [Attorney General Pam] Bondi about disturbing allegations of blank ballots commingled with voted mail ballots in Runbeck’s Maricopa County warehouse. Part of the ongoing pattern of disastrous elections in State 48. The FBI has now seized election records in its expanding probe.”
In June last year, Congressman Hamadeh wrote to AG Bondi about disturbing allegations of blank ballots commingled with voted mail ballots in Runbeck’s Maricopa County warehouse.
Part of the ongoing pattern of disastrous elections in State 48.
The FBI has now seized election…
— Office of Congressman Abe Hamadeh (@RepAbeHamadeh) March 9, 2026
Runbeck Election Services is the private ballot printing and processing company that Maricopa County uses to scan hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots dropped off on Election Day.
Hamadeh said in a statement at the time, “We have known for years that our election processes in Arizona are flawed and ripe with opportunities for nefarious forces. There appears to be a clear pattern and practice of security breakdowns, system failures, and outright manipulation that must be investigated and remedied.”
“Now is the time for our Department of Justice to investigate credible allegations and offer sound recommendations to ensure that the integrity of our elections is restored in full.”
Hamadeh lost to Democrat Kris Mayes in the 2022 state attorney general race by 511 votes of the over 2.5 million cast.
On Election Day that year, when Republicans voted in significantly larger numbers than Democrats, at least 70 voting centers in Maricopa County had on-demand ballot printing issues, preventing the ballots from being scanned and counted on site and creating long voter lines.
Hamadeh, who was elected to the seat in 2024, represents Anthem, where the lines were two hours long on Election Day 2022, as reported by The Western Journal.
Here is the problem w/ what happened in Maricopa County on Election Day. This is Anthem, north of Phoenix at about 1:15 pm. Ruby red district of about 30K people. Only one polling location. Ballot tabulators not working in the morning. 2 hr wait to vote midday and still at 6 pm. pic.twitter.com/CY35yQWwq5
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) November 14, 2022
Kari Lake — who narrowly lost the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs in 2022, and a U.S. Senate race to Ruben Gallego in 2024– posted on social media, “A federal grand jury is now active and has subpoenaed Maricopa County’s election records, including from the 2024 cycle, to probe longstanding issues in State 48. So many of us have raised the alarm for years. The news of this subpoena gives me great hope that something will finally be done.”
Both Hamadeh and Lake lost their court cases regarding the 2022 election to have the elections either overturned or redone.
Former Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer, who lost his reelection bid in 2024 to Republican Justin Heap, argued on Monday that the claims of voter fraud were overblown.
For those happy people who haven’t thought about the 2020 election in a long time.
A reminder that:
– Maricopa County did a post-election hand-count audit
– Multiple lawsuits, involving evidence, failed following the 2020 election
– Trump’s own 2020 election law team said…
— Stephen Richer (@stephen_richer) March 9, 2026
“The Attorney General’s Office under Mark Brnovich spent 10,000 man hours investigating the 2020 election results. They found no material fraud or error,” he said.
Despite Trump’s decisive 2024 win in Arizona and the state legislature being narrowly controlled by Republicans, all of the major statewide office holders are Democrats, including the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. The state treasurer is a Republican.
Both the Grand Canyon’s state’s U.S. senators are also Democrats.
Randy DeSoto has written more than 3,000 articles for The Western Journal since he began with the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”
Birthplace
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Nationality
American
Honors/Awards
Graduated dean’s list from West Point
Education
United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law
Books Written
We Hold These Truths
Professional Memberships
Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Entertainment, Faith
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