Arizona Attorney General Tells ‘60 Minutes’ Election Deniers Are ‘Clowns’ Engaged In ‘A Giant Grift’

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said on Sunday that candidates who continue to push the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” are “clowns” who are “engaged in a giant grift.”

Brnovich, a lifelong Republican, supported Donald Trump in 2020 and investigated claims of election fraud in Arizona after election. He ultimately found just 12 cases—12 fraudulent ballots—cast in a state where Joe Biden won by 10,000 votes.

“We, as prosecutors, deal in facts and evidence,” Brnovich told CBS’ Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. “And I’m not like the clowns that throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks…I think that there are a lot of clowns out there that— they saw what they wanted to see. What is that Simon and Garfunkel line that— ‘A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest’? There’s a lotta that going on.”

Asked by Pelley what he thinks of the continued allegations of election fraud, Brnovich said “horse****” And that’s what it is. Most of it’s horse****. And I’ve been trying to scrape it off my shoes for the last year.”

Candidates who say the 2020 election was stolen are running for governor in 19 states—including Arizona, where Republican Kari Lake has said of 2020 “we had a fradulent election, a corrupt election, and we have an illegitimate president sitting in the White House.”

“There was no one in this country that wanted to find evidence of fraud more than I did,” Brnovich told 60 Minutes. “But I thought it was important to systematically go through and say, no, this is the facts, this is the evidence, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but when you’re an actual prosecutor, when you’re the actual government, there’s a higher obligation you can’t afford to be sloppy.”