The FBI issued a grand jury subpoena last week for records tied to Arizona’s controversial 2020 election audit, marking the second publicly known jurisdiction under scrutiny in a Department of Justice investigation examining election-related activities from that year.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, disclosed Monday that he received the subpoena last week seeking records connected to the Arizona state Senate’s review of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County. Petersen said he complied with the request.
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
Federal investigators are reportedly examining a large tranche of Arizona election data tied to both the 2020 and 2024 cycles, Fox News reported. The Washington Examiner contacted the FBI’s Phoenix field office.
The subpoena signals a widening federal investigation into disputes surrounding the 2020 election. Earlier this year, investigators also began examining election-related matters in Fulton County, Georgia, another jurisdiction that was central to allegations of voting irregularities following the presidential race.
President Donald Trump amplified the development on Monday after sharing a report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, “Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.”
The investigation comes as Trump has renewed his focus on election security ahead of the midterm elections. Over the weekend, the president said he would not sign legislation unless Congress passes the SAVE America Act, a proposal that would require voters to present proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version Trump supports would also significantly restrict mail-in voting, allowing it primarily for military voters and with limited exceptions.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, criticized the investigation, arguing that it is based on claims already rejected by courts and state officials.
“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.”
Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, became a focal point for election disputes after Trump narrowly lost the state in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. Republican lawmakers later commissioned an audit conducted by the firm Cyber Ninjas, which examined ballots and voting equipment in Phoenix.
The audit, conducted in July 2021, drew intense scrutiny and unusual levels of national interest. Dominion Voting Systems criticized the review as “irresponsible,” while state Senate leaders questioned whether certain election system databases had been deleted — claims that election officials and technology experts disputed.
While Cyber Ninjas’s final report on the handling of the election documented irregularities and areas where the state should improve, it ultimately affirmed then-President Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
It’s unclear whether more states and their election data will become targets of the FBI, though the effort coincides with the DOJ suing more than half of the states in the union to obtain voter rolls — information the department maintains will be helpful to ensuring elections are conducted fairly, state to state.
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS SEEK RULING TO BLOCK DOJ USE OF FULTON COUNTY ELECTION DATA
Separately, Reuters reported last month that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard led an investigation last spring into voting machines used in Puerto Rico, an incident that has added another wrinkle in the administration’s not-too-clear efforts to investigate alleged election irregularities ahead of midterm elections.
Gabbard was seen in Fulton County in late January while the FBI was raiding the county’s election facility. A senior DOJ official familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that the department is not actively working with Gabbard on broader election investigative matters.