New records reveal that voter files for those in Maricopa County, Arizona, were illegally obtained. Officials discovered that 633,000 voter files were obtained from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office prior to the 2020 election and contained information such as names, birth dates, and addresses. About 930 of the individuals on the list were domestic violence victims, judges, and law enforcement officers.
FBI Director Kash Patel sent a letter this week to the White House Task Force on Government Transparency, confirming the development. “The FBI can confirm that the incident in Maricopa County mentioned in the Election 2020 cyber intrusion logs kept by U.S. intelligence agencies was fully investigated by the Bureau,” the letter says. “The FBI confirmed that voter records were illegally extracted from the site and identified a suspect who admitted the crime.”
The suspect detailed in the letter told FBI agents he discovered the vulnerability on the county’s servers. “He kept the files stored at his home but destroyed them shortly before the FBI raided his home in Fountain Hills, Arizona,” Patel wrote. He added that Arizona officials, such as the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Maricopa County, Arizona Attorney’s Office, and the Pinal County, Arizona Attorney’s Office, all declined to prosecute the man.
According to the FBI’s interview with the suspect, the man “initially received an adrenaline rush” from his actions, but later “realized he made a huge mistake with regrets and remorse. He did not intend to sell the information because it was publicly available.”
