It is, we are told, a “bomb”. A stunning piece of political deceit that has shaken our honest state to its core.
Fortunately, the Republican Party of Arizona is at work.
Less than 24 hours after Katie Hobbs’ election to governor became official, the Republican Party is calling on Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate her alleged nefarious actions.
Cue state GOP chair Kelli Ward:
“Two days ago, a bombshell fell that Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs pressured Twitter to remove posts while she was running for governor of Arizona,” Ward wrote in a Tuesday. letter to Brnovich.
The party asks Brnovich to “investigate immediately” Hobbs for “running a private company (Twitter) to suppress free speech.”
What betrayal has Katie Hobbs committed?
Ward also wants the outgoing Attorney General to sue Hobbs for illegally coordinating with Twitter “to remove a post she believed was detrimental to her campaign.”
“It appears that Secretary Hobbs, acting in her official capacity, using state resources and sometimes in coordination with the Biden administration, has privately asked Twitter to delete posts on her behalf,” Ward wrote.
Naturally, Kari Lake supports the call for an investigation, declaring that Hobbs’ “war on political dissent and the First Amendment has only just begun.”
Goodness.
So what mischief has Governor-elect Katie Machiavelli perpetrated on an unsuspecting public? What betrayal justifies such fear at GOP headquarters?
According to internal Twitter documents that surfaced over the weekend, Hobbs’ office alerted the nonprofit Center for Information Security (CIS) to a pair of tweets containing “election-related misinformation.” CIS then passed the information on to Twitter, which deleted the two tweets.
The circumstances behind those deleted tweets
Assistant Secretary of State Allie Bones says the two tweets were flagged for falsely claiming that Arizona’s voter registration system is operated by a foreign company.
“Is our entire electoral system in foreign hands?” one of the now deleted tweets early.
So the tweets — which came from a now-deleted Twitter account that appears German and was set up in June 2020 — were flagged January 7, 2021.
For the challenged calendar, that’s the day after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by the Trump mob and nearly five months before Hobbs announced her candidacy for governor.
Why did Hobbs win?Her campaign team describes the victory strategy
Bones said it’s standard procedure for government agencies and other organizations to report social media content that violates a platform’s terms of service.
“It is the job of the Secretary of State to ensure that voters are informed about how to vote and how our electoral system works,” she said in a statement. “One of the ways we do that is by countering online disinformation that can confuse voters.”
Or put another way, working to counter lies designed to trick voters into believing there was a conspiracy going on.
But it’s all an election conspiracy, right?
According to Ward, the most delusional of the far right, it was all an orchestrated plot to quell dissent so that two years later Hobbs could march unchallenged into the governor’s office.
“The AZ SOS and Gov. candidate, Katie Hobbs, used the power of the AZ SOS to collaborate with Twitter to unconstitutionally violate Americans’ First Amendment rights for her own political gain,” said Georgia Rep. . Marjorie Taylor Greene explained on Sunday. “This is communism and Hobbs can’t be governor. I am calling for a federal investigation.”
“Staffs for Arizona Secretary of State, at the behest of gubernatorial nominee and then-Secretary of State @KatieHobbs, conducted censorship through CISA…this is illegal,” Fox’s Tucker Carlson proclaimed on Monday. “This is a crime. A crime against our democracy.”
“@katiehobbs war on political dissent and the first amendment has only just begun,” Kari Lake’s campaign tweeted. “Shame on all those who have refused to hold this petty tyrant to account. There is still time to do the right thing.”
Gosh, and you wonder why the Republican Party lost every major race in Arizona this year?
Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake Demands a Katie Hobbs Investigation. That’s bizarre
