Photo: Alamy
In Arizona’s Maricopa County, the County Recorder, Stephen Richer, allegedly worked with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to censor and suppress election “malinformation,” according to documents shared by Trump attorney Christina Bobb.
“Well look at what we found!!” Bobb posted on Twitter. “Turns out @CISAgov has been collaborating with Maricopa County @stephen_richer to censor election information and keeping it from the public. Notice it’s marked FOUO. Richer also started a Super PAC to take down ‘election deniers’…….”
The tweet included four screenshots of documents detailing Richer’s meeting with CISA in March 2022, with excerpts providing insight into his intentions.
“Mr. Richer expressed concern that if the elections landscape continues like this, the pressure on his staff will continue to build and it will become difficult to perform statutory responsibilities needed to establish safe, credible, and fair elections,” the document read.
The document also defined “malinformation” as an “abuse of Arizona’s permissive public records process.”
Richer’s alleged partnership with CISA comes fresh on the heels of reports of his involvement in forming an anti-MAGA PAC in 2021. Despite this conflict of interest, Richer partially oversaw the fumbled election processes in Maricopa County in November 2022, where MAGA candidate and Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake has filed a lawsuit.
Per Lake v. Hobbs, she is naming her Democrat opponent and current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as a Contestee in the lawsuit. Richer is also named in the suit “in his official capacity as Maricopa County Recorder.”
According to a report from Just the News, Richer assumed office as the Maricopa County Recorder in 2020, and it was shortly after his election that he started his anti-MAGA PAC in 2021.
Via RSBN, Maricopa County Chairman Bill Gates reportedly had a direct hand in forming the anti-MAGA PAC, as well.
The CISA documents shared by Bobb additionally cited five major “opportunities” that Richer identified for potential CISA support:
- “Educate the public and determine how people are manipulating the public’s understanding of the truth;
- Funding and resources;
- Intelligence and metrics;
- Partnership with social media; and
- Share best practices on pre-bunking.”
