In a pathetic attempt to salvage his reputation, Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich called 2020 election deniers "clowns that throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks" in an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes broadcast Sunday. In Arizona, both the Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, and the nominee for secretary of state, Republican state Rep. Mark Finchem, are election deniers, despite no credible evidence supporting the claim that Arizona has experienced voter fraud.
During his interview with CBS News, Brnovich called out 2020 election deniers including Lake, noting that election denying is "like a giant grift in some ways." Despite allowing the conspiracy theories of a ‘stolen election’ to grow while he was in office, Brnovich argued that election officials "deal in facts and evidence" and claims of fraud are "horses**t."
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The lifelong Republican (who voted for Donald Trump in 2020) noted that since he was responsible for investigating election fraud, he thoroughly investigated any leads that were sent to his office.
"There was no one in this country who wanted to find evidence of fraud more than I did," Brnovich told CBS News. "But I thought it was important to systematically go through and say 'no' this is the facts, this is the evidence, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but when you're an actual prosecutor, when you're the actual government, there's a higher obligation—you can't afford to be sloppy."
He also claimed that Trump called him after the presidential election and said, "All you gotta do is say the election's fraudulent, and you will be a superstar, you'll be the most popular guy in America.”
But instead of falling for it, Brnovich said he pushed back and told Trump he didn't become attorney general to be a star and he didn't need anyone, "whether it's a former president, or any other person validating what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.”
"Most of it's horses**t, and I've been trying to scrape it off my shoes for the last year," he said in an obvious at attempt at bettering his reputation.
The interview comes after about two years of election audits and investigations, including Republicans' demands of arrest for those who helped “steal” the election.
Why Brnovich decided to speak up about the elections and call his fellow party members clowns now is interesting timing, given the critical midterm elections creeping up and his loss in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat. He noted before the Aug. 2 primary that he’d found no evidence of widespread fraud, but failed to release an updated report with his findings—clearly because he was afraid of a loss.
The formerly Trump-endorsed Republican faced criticism from the former president for not overturning election results. Now that he’s lost the support of the GOP, it seems Brnovich is trying to salvage his reputation by taking Republicans down and attempting to appeal to those who supported the actual 2020 election results.
As of this report, the total number of fraud found in the 2020 election amounts to exactly 12 people charged with crimes.
“We, as prosecutors, deal in facts and evidence,” Brnovich said on Sunday. “And I’m not like the clowns that throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.”
Of course, others also noted the timing of Brnovich’s statements, including Ruben Gallego, an outspoken Democratic congressman who many have encouraged to run against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Gallego thinks that Brnovich is clearly attempting to save his reputation by finally diverting from the Republican Party line.
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