Why Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar were subpoenaed in Arizona's fake electors investigation
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Two members of Arizona’s Congressional delegation have been subpoenaed in connection with the investigation into the efforts among some Republicans to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar are both close allies of former President Donald Trump, and both were supportive of efforts to challenge President Biden’s win in Arizona four years ago.
The news of the subpoenas to Biggs and Gosar was first reported by Politico. Kyle Cheney was one of the reporters on the story, and he joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full interview
MARK BRODIE: Good morning.
KYLE CHENEY: Good morning. Good to be with you.
BRODIE: Thank you for being here. So what is the, what does it mean? I guess that, that Congress members Biggs and Gosar have been subpoenaed by the investigators here in Arizona looking into this.
CHENEY: So one of the things we've been trying to discern is what is Attorney General Mayes looking at? How, how deep is she going into this investigation? Is she looking squarely at Arizona actors or is she going beyond them? Now, Biggs and Gosar are members of Arizona's congressional delegation, but they are much more closely tied to Donald Trump and some of the national people involved in the, you know, 2020 election issues, than, than say some of the people who acted as false electors, which is another aspect of the investigation. So I think, you know, it tells us that she's looking at bigger issues than just what happened inside Arizona.
BRODIE: Yes. So what, I guess what clues does that give us in terms of where the investigation might be looking and leading? Because she and her staff have been pretty tight lipped about what they're doing.
CHENEY: They have and, and, and, and our best understanding of things is that she is, you know, if, if she does bring charges, which we understand to be fairly imminent, they would be probably largely against those figures inside Arizona, those who did sign documents claiming to be Donald Trump's electors when, when in fact, Joe Biden had won the state.
But whether she goes a level beyond that into some figures who work for the Trump campaign or the Republican National committee, and some of their allies, that, that is so sort of the murkier area and what we've been trying to figure out, I don't, we don't understand that Ghost are and Biggs are targets here. We haven't gotten that any indication of that, but that the fact that she wants their information or did at one point want their information may tell us that she's painting a larger story than just, the Arizona elector process.
BRODIE: Is there any expectation that either of these members of Congress will actually testify?
CHENEY: I, I would tend to doubt it. You know, we haven't, you know, we, we don't know one way or the other, how they've responded to this subpoena, whether they threatened the challenge had actually challenged, cooperated in any way. But because members of Congress have really robust protections against being compelled to testify in criminal proceedings, especially about their official business, which in some ways, you know, the, the Jan. 6 session of Congress certifying the election is part of their official business. It's very hard for any prosecutor to force that. And so we haven't got any indication, there's been some legal battle playing out over this. And, and so I might, my guess is they probably haven't enforced these subpoenas because otherwise we would probably have seen that.
BRODIE: Right. Have either of these Congress members or their staff said anything about having received them or what they think about having received them.
CHENEY: No, now Congress has been out and they're, they're back this, they're back this week. So hopefully, we can maybe get some insight on that. We know that that Representative Ghost are notified the speaker of the subpoena back in February. And so, you know, he, he has notified his colleagues but, but how the house intends to respond to the subpoena as an institution or how he as an individual tens to do that. We, we just don't know yet.
BRODIE: Is there anything to be gleaned from how,, attorneys general or prosecutors in other states have handled the issue of the, the fake electors and how their investigations have proceeded that might give us some insight into what could potentially happen here in Arizona.
CHENEY: Well, it's what's so interesting is, is, is a wide range, you know, in Georgia, three of the, the false electors were charged alongside Donald Trump as part of this large racketeering conspiracy. But in Michigan, the attorney general there charged only the false electors 16 of them and no one else. And then in Nevada, it was the same thing, there were six of them there.
And so we don't know, we, you know, we don't know if Attorney General Mayes is sort of somewhere on the spectrum between what happened in Georgia. We don't think Donald Trump is a target of her investigation and the other two states, Michigan and Nevada where she may rope in some campaign related figures, you know, she had Ken Chesebro who is a key Trump lawyer testify and he's been charged in Georgia as well. So, so there are sort of a middle ground here, I think between those two ends of the spectrum.
BRODIE: And as you say, you know, there's an expectation that we might hear something from Kris Mayes' office reasonably soon about, about where her investigation is and, and what her investigators have found, obviously as we get closer to the election, I would imagine that will maybe play a bigger role in, in how people see some of these people and maybe how they decide to vote.
CHENEY: Yeah. You know, I mean, I, I think prosecutors are generally reluctant to take these sort of major steps the closer you get to an election. And so that's one of the, the reasons we expect, you know, some sort of action soon not to mention the uptick in activity that we and others have been reporting on, out of Arizona suggest to us that she's nearing the finish line here. And, and so, yeah, I think there's, you know, look, there's four criminal cases pending against Donald Trump. They obviously are already playing a major role in the political process as well. So this would just be another bullet point on that list. But like, I guess that's another reason why we're so curious as to how broad this case is or if he really tailors it narrowly to Arizona.
BRODIE: Interesting. All right. That is Kyle Cheney, a reporter with Politico. Kyle, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.
CHENEY: Thanks for having me.
