Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.

That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.

Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.

The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.

According to The Arizona Republic:

In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”

“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.

America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reported, the dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”

The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:

Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.

Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.

Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)

The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.

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Republican lawmakers continued their efforts to downplay and obscure the crisis of racist extremism during yet another hearing centered on the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

I’ve been documenting the Republican Party’s dubious crusade against the SPLC, the organization known for assisting law enforcement with investigating racist extremist groups. The Trump administration’s recent indictment of the SPLC on allegations the group defrauded investors by financing the extremist groups they claim to fight has ramped up that attack and fits a long tradition of white conservatives denying the origins, existence or extremism of racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. (The SPLC has denied any wrongdoing.)

That propaganda effort continued Tuesday at a House hearing where Republicans accused the SPLC of “manufacturing hate” despite the organization having been an important partner to the federal government for decades in rooting out white supremacist extremism — a national security threat acknowledged by officials from both the Biden administration and President Donald Trump’s first administration.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s line of questioning left little doubt about his effort to portray the SPLC as nefarious and the impetus for various acts of racism. At one point, Jordan asked SPLC CEO Bryan Fair whether his organization’s work was “all about the money.” At another, Jordan said the SPLC’s fundraising had increased after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, to which Fair replied by saying the group’s funding went up after Trump became president. 

The sentiment fueling the Republican Party’s resentment toward the SPLC appears to be the same angst-ridden sentiment expressed on Tuesday by Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid administrator, Mehmet Oz, when he complained to Fox Business about critics who have called the administration racist for making racist generalizations about Somalians. Which is to say, Republicans’ anger seems rooted in the fact that they or their allies aren’t free to engage in racist behavior without facing scrutiny. 

Dr Oz: "You're not allowed to complain about Somalians, because that's racist. And the worst thing you can be in Minnesota is a racist." pic.twitter.com/1WAhx1ABoi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026

“You’re not allowed to complain about Somalians because that’s racist,” Oz complained. “And the worst thing you can be in Minnesota is a racist.”

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As the Republican Party copes with the pitfalls of its allegiance to a historically unpopular president ahead of the midterm elections, conservative lawmakers are scraping the barrel of desperate tactics and resorting to brazen racism.

Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demonstrated this when he lobbed a deluded accusation on Fox News that “minority communities” in blue states are “especially” responsible for “rampant fraud.” It’s the sort of racist remark one might expect from a Ku Klux Klansman, not the leader of a congressional committee.

Comer: "What we're seeing especially in the blue states is there is rampant fraud, especially in the minority communities" pic.twitter.com/fkmHORqDGV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026

To state what should be obvious, Comer’s racist claim is also baseless. It aligns with bigoted claims that President Donald Trump — someone who has been found liable for fraud — has made while his administration has pushed debunked claims to portray the Somali community as rife with fraudsters. (Trump is appealing in his civil fraud case.)

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., echoed Trump’s racism back in December when he made the false claim that Somalians were responsible for “80%” of crime in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The fundamental conceit behind these baseless attacks — apparent attempts to portray nonwhite people as more prone to crime — is a tired trope that has been deployed by white supremacists for centuries.

But with regard to Comer’s remarks, there’s no evidence that “minority communities” are responsible for rampant fraud. The term “minority” is a nonspecific one that can essentially mean whichever group the person uttering it wants to include, but in this case it’s effectively useless for all purposes except racist scapegoating.

To be clear: Racial or ethnic groups cannot be collectively responsible for fraud — individuals can be.

Otherwise, one could look at the growing list of fraudsters Trump has pardoned, note the large number of white dudes on that list and draw a conclusion that this data — along with Trump’s own history — proves there is a rampant fraud crisis among the white community.

I suspect Comer isn’t as interested in opening that can of worms as he is in peddling racist rhetoric to the masses.

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