Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen said Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, representing the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over matters stemming from the last presidential race.
Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post that he received the subpoena for material related to the Arizona State Senate's 2020 audit of Maricopa County last week and complied with it. "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 wrote. "The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news."
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News that the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from both 2020 and 2024. The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia, where FBI agents recently searched an election hub.
The development comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly focused on election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race. The White House directed questions to the FBI, which declined to comment.
What the Right Is Saying
President Trump celebrated the development, sharing a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social with the comment: "Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona's largest county as voting probe expands."
The president has increasingly focused on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms. In a social media post to Congress on Sunday, Trump said he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill's primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
Supporters argue these measures are necessary to prevent voter fraud and restore confidence in the electoral system, which they say was compromised by irregularities in 2020.
What the Left Is Saying
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, called the new investigation illegitimate and politically motivated. "What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry," Mayes said in a statement. "It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies."
Mayes based her characterization on the premise that claims underlying the investigation have been proven wrong by courts and state investigators. The statement reflects a broader Democratic concern that the federal probe represents an overuse of law enforcement power for political purposes.
Progressive critics have argued that repeated investigations into the 2020 election without evidence of widespread fraud constitute a waste of federal resources and potentially undermine public confidence in elections rather than strengthen it.
What the Numbers Show
President Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by approximately 0.3 percentage points, a margin of about 10,500 votes. The state was one of the closest in the nation and ultimately went to President Biden.
Trump's legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities in Arizona and other battleground states, but none were successful in overturning results. Courts dismissed multiple cases for lack of evidence.
Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous county, was a focal point for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. The county conducted two separate audits confirming the accuracy of the 2020 vote count.
The DOJ has now publicly confirmed investigations into two jurisdictions: Fulton County, Georgia, and Maricopa County, Arizona. Both were centers of Trump campaign fraud allegations following the 2020 election.
The Bottom Line
The FBI subpoena marks a visible expansion of federal election oversight as the Trump administration enters its third year. The investigation into Arizona voting records adds a second state to the DOJ's publicly known probe, building on the Georgia inquiry that began earlier this year.
The development signals continued federal attention to 2020 election disputes even as the next major electoral cycle approaches. Trump's push for the SAVE America Act, which he has tied to his willingness to sign any legislation, indicates election administration will remain a central policy fight.
Arizona Attorney General Mayes and other Democrats have characterized the investigations as politically motivated, while Trump and supporters frame them as necessary law enforcement to protect election integrity. The tension between these perspectives is likely to intensify as the 2026 midterms approach and as more information about the scope of federal investigations becomes public.