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Calls for AG elections investigator to recuse herself because of tweets

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Posted at 5:20 PM, Nov 30, 2022
and last updated 2022-11-30 20:48:11-05

PHOENIX — The head of Arizona's Election Integrity Unity is facing scrutiny over tweets she made immediately following the election.

In the early morning hours of November 9th, the day after the election, Jennifer Wright started taking aim at the Maricopa County Elections Department.

She tweeted from her private account, "Incompetence on top of Incompetence". In another tweet, Wright wrote, "In all my years doing election work, it has never taken Maricopa this long to report election day results. Never. Never. Ever."

Ten days later, in her capacity as an assistant attorney general, Wright sent a letter to Thomas Liddy, the Civil Division Chief at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

Wright wanted an explanation of Maricopa's Election Day problems before the county certified its results.

Election Law and legal ethics expert Thomas Ryan believes at a minimum Wright should have recused herself from the investigation because her tweets amount to a conflict of interest. "It is highly inappropriate and unethical for such a person to be criticizing the county before they've been given a chance to respond to questions," Ryan said.

Then on November 25, Wright tweeted that her comments were out of frustration that no day-of votes were released in the hours after the polls closed.

"It's hard to condone a prosecutor's action when they tip their hand when they're supposed to be close to impartial as you can get," said former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Goddard doesn't believe politics is determining what the Attorney General's Office chooses to investigate related to the 2022 election. But Goddard and former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley felt compelled to send a letter to Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Wright requesting they launch an investigation of Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Thomas Crosby.

Both refused to certify the county election results by the November 28 deadline as required by state law. "They don't have any wiggle room this is not the opportunity to have a factual hearing on whether or not there are election problems. they have other venues where they can do that. but this is not that and so they broke the law," Goddard said.

Goddard says the Attorney General's Office has not yet responded to the request to investigate the Cochise County Supervisors.

Katie Connor, the spokesperson for the Arizona Attorney General's Office did not respond to whether Wright should recuse herself from investigating the Maricopa County Election.

Connor did say, "General Brnovich insists all Attorney General employees perform their duties in a professional and ethical manner. He respects their first amendment rights that do not end just because they work for a government agency."