Newly declassified records from the Trump administration reveal that hundreds of thousands of voter files were accessed from Maricopa County, Arizona, during the 2020 election cycle.
According to the Daily Caller, an administration official briefed reporters that 633,000 voter registration files were obtained via the Maricopa County Registrar Offices website during the 2020 contest. Of those, 930 files contained sensitive data, including information on domestic violence victims, judges and law enforcement officers, raising serious questions about basic election-system security safeguards.
Another official told the Caller that there is currently no evidence President Donald Trump was ever briefed on these specific findings, though officials are still searching for any such record. The same official emphasized that the investigation remains focused on how such a large-scale breach could occur without meaningful accountability from prosecutors.
The FBI spent significant resources solving this cybercrime. The attorneys office for the District of Arizona declined under the Joe Biden Justice Department to bring charges. The Arizona Attorney Generals office declined to bring charges, one administration official told reporters. The Maricopa County District Attorneys Office declined to bring child charges; the Pinal County, Arizona District Attorneys Office also, when presented the evidence, declined prosecution.
The official added that the FBI continued pressing for a prosecution through 2023, only to be rebuffed at every level. Such reluctance from multiple prosecutorial offices, particularly under the Biden Justice Department, will likely fuel conservative concerns that election-related vulnerabilities are being downplayed for political reasons.
The suspect was described as a hobbyist hacker who had observed weaknesses in the county website for some time, according to the official. He admitted to the crime, and additional documents confirm his confession.
The hacker did not obtain any ballots, and he maintains he did not alter any voter information, the official told reporters. Nonetheless, the scale of the breach underscores how easily bad actors could exploit unsecured systems in a closely contested election.
Trump delivered a rare primetime address on July 16 to unveil newly declassified documents he said prove China interfered in the 2020 presidential race. During the address, the president alleged that China compromised voter files for 220 million Americans across multiple states and that the deep state intelligence community concealed the evidence from him and President Joe Biden.
Despite the gravity of those claims, the president told the Daily Caller he intends to raise the matter directly with Beijing during a state visit in September, while noting that Chinas posture may have shifted. Well, were going to talk to them about it. It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then, Trump said.
But look, they do things, and we do things to them, Ill be honest, we do things to them too, its not a one-way-street, but well be talking to them, he added.
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