Tim Steller's column: It's time for Arizona AG Mark Brnovich to go

Conservative performance artist Mark Brnovich should stop acting as attorney general of Arizona.

For more than a year, Brnovich has been using the power of the position he holds to establish himself as a super-Trump Republican.

Since June, when he announced he’s running for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, his behavior has only gotten worse, descending into self-parody.

But it’s not funny, since he is supposed to represent all Arizonans, not just a subset of Republicans whose political support he cherishes. Worse, he is under pressure from those same people to charge someone with election fraud related to the 2020 election.

This is a decision that must be made cleanly, without Brnovich’s usual dramatic posturing.

But he’s shown no inclination to stop the act. The latest examples occurred Monday, as Brnovich staked himself out as a pro-border-war candidate and inserted himself into the latest populist cause — the Canadian trucker convoy.

Evidence lacking

In response to a request from extremist legislator Rep. Jake Hoffman, Brnovich issued a legal opinion Monday that Arizona is suffering an “invasion” at the Mexican border by cartel and gang members. As a result, under the Constitution, it may “engage in war” to repel the invasion.

Governors from Janet Napolitano to Doug Ducey have been using the National Guard at the border, but Brnovich’s opinion could potentially justify more direct engagement by soldiers, rather than keeping them in support roles.

Brnovich’s opinion is worth a little analysis, since it is so clearly is a political ploy as much as a legal opinion. He avoids declaring the migrants at the border “invaders” because that concept has already been thrown out in federal court. Instead, he asserts “The on-the-ground violence and lawlessness caused by cartels and gangs is extensive, well-documented, and persistent.”

While he refers to violence at the border as “escalating,” he gives no evidence that it actually is increasing. In fact, the opinion cites three separate acts of violence that occurred in Mexico as evidence of escalation in Arizona.

After citing one, a highway robbery deep in Sonora, he acknowledges, “Although this did not occur in Arizona, it shows the threats of violence that the cartels pose.”

Sheriffs divided

This is the sort of rhetorical device that has long dogged Arizona’s borderlands. Occurrences in Mexico are used to paint a picture of violence on both sides of the border, although in reality, the two sides are very different when it comes to the rule of law.

I surveyed the four Arizona border sheriffs to find if they agreed with the attorney general’s description of the situation at the border as an “invasion.” Only one did, Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County. In fact, he used Brnovich’s description as an explanation for why the county should accept a series of border-security grants at Tuesday’s meeting of the county supervisors.

In an email, Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot did not embrace or reject the “invasion” description. He simply said it appeared Brnovich was laying the groundwork for state and local law enforcement to become involved in stopping “mass migration” at the border.

Those are the two Republican border sheriffs. The two Democratic border sheriffs rejected Brnovich’s “invasion” description as applying to their counties, Pima and Santa Cruz.

“Nothing would indicate that it’s an invasion or that we should take a war stance or war posture,” said Sheriff David Hathaway of Santa Cruz County, home to the state’s largest land port of entry at Nogales.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said he doesn’t see significant gang and cartel activity along his county’s stretch of border and “does not let political rhetoric dictate what’s going on along that border.”

But of course, accurately describing reality is not the point when it comes to Brnovich. The point, for a long time, has been to use his office to cultivate support in the five-way primary for U.S. Senate.

Hence, a lesser-known stand Brnovich took on Monday: His office sent a letter to GoFundMe, the company that allows people to run online fundraising campaigns. Brnovich’s concern: GoFundMe shut down a fundraiser for the Canadian trucker convoy that has been a cause célèbre on the populist right, starting as an anti-vaccine-mandate protest.

His office was a little late in putting the letter out to have any practical effect. GoFundMe already had announced it would refund all $9 million in donations left in the fundraiser’s account. But that’s never the objective with Brnovich these days — the goal is to perform for the primary voters.

Under pressure to prosecute

Brnovich makes his legal decisions with those voters, that small subset of Arizonans, in mind. Take, for example, his position on investigating the slates of alternate electors supporting Donald Trump who presented themselves as the state’s legitimate electors after the 2020 elections.

Brnovich, who has spent Biden’s entire term in office confronting the federal government, suddenly became submissive when asked to investigate those electors for potential violations of state law, including forgery and criminal impersonation.

He said on KTAR’s “The Mike Broomhead Show“: “As to specific procedures regarding the authenticity of electors, the U.S. Department of Justice is exercising its original jurisdiction in that case. So, anybody who has questions or concerns about that should contact the Department of Justice.”

If it doesn’t benefit him politically, Brnovich won’t do it.

That’s why it’s so dangerous that he continues to hold the powers of the Attorney General’s Office.

In the weeks following the 2020 general election, Brnovich dismissed the idea that fraud altered the election results in Arizona, and he certified the election.

Now the results of last year’s review of the election — the so-called Maricopa County “audit” — have been handed to Brnovich’s office. He is under intense pressure from former President Trump, from GOP primary voters and from his opponents to prosecute someone, anyone for purported “election fraud” in the operation of the 2020 general election.

“Mark Brnovich says President Trump is wrong on voter fraud,” a narrator intones in an ad by Saving Arizona PAC, released in September. “Brnovich failed to convene a grand jury, certified Biden as president. Now he’s nowhere to be found, making excuses instead of standing with our president.”

That PAC supports Blake Masters, one of the five candidates for the U.S. Senate nomination. The conservative disinformation outlet Gateway Pundit has also been going after Brnovich.

Its owner, Jim Hoft, wrote in January, “Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich was given a platter of fraudulent and criminal activities related to the results of the 2020 Election in Arizona. The fact that he has done nothing with this to date is reprehensible.”

Brnovich has said his office is investigating allegations of criminal wrongdoing in the conduct of the election. If he doesn’t bring an indictment, some Republican voters and interests will punish him. If he does, any charges will appear to be political performance.

It’s a no-win situation that neither he, nor we as Arizonans, should be in.

The solution is for Brnovich to resign.