Washington, DC — Last night, the Phoenix New Times came out with new reporting on Arizona GOP Attorney General nominee Abe Hamadeh. The piece delivers a devastating blow to the candidate attempting — and failing — to run on a “law and order” platform. They write, “When he wasn’t bragging about altering ballots, he was offering antisemitic and sexist rants, backing Sheriff Joe Arpaio and arguing that voting should be limited to college graduates who pass intelligence tests.” Other outlets and media figures have weighed in on the explosive new findings, including The Huffington Post and the Arizona Republic’s Laurie Collins.

The New Times reports on Hamadeh’s comments on an online message board and his father’s alarming involvement with the firebombing of a synagogue in the 1990’s.

• “In 1994, a grand jury in Illinois indicted his father, jeweler Jamal Hamadah, on charges of conspiracy to commit arson after the Mikro Kodesh Anshe Tiktin synagogue was fire-bombed, according to the Chicago Reader.”
• “In 2008, Abe Hamadeh advocated for cutting U.S. funding to Israel and indicated fervent opposition to Israel as a state in several of his posts on the Ron Paul Forum. ‘If you think Jews arent big in america (2%) how come 56% of them are CEO’S … Jews are influential and for the most part rich. its good were targetting Arabs now, next will target Jews,’ he posted in July 2007.”

The Huffington Post highlighted Hamadeh’s claims of changing his mother’s vote in 2008:

• “Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for attorney general in Arizona, seemingly admitted to committing voter fraud during the 2008 presidential election in a series of message board posts he made as a teen, the Phoenix New Times reported Tuesday.”
• “An account the New Times linked to Hamadeh, who was 17 and ineligible to vote at the time, made the posts on a forum popular among fans of libertarian former congressman Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008. In two posts from before that election, Hamadeh reportedly appeared to admit that his mother intended to vote for Paul, but that he regretfully changed her absentee ballot to a vote in favor of Barack Obama instead.”
• “That could amount to an admission of a crime under Arizona law, one expert told the New Times. The statute of limitations on voter fraud cases, however, means that Hamadeh couldn’t be prosecuted now.”
• Hamadeh’s campaign did not deny the substance of the claims in a statement to the New Times, instead insisting that posts made while he was a teenager should not be an issue in a 2022 campaign.

The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Collins weighed in on Hamadeh’s lack of maturity and how unprepared he is to become Attorney General, given his history of anti-law enforcement rants and his love affair with Trump’s Big Lie:

• “Consider, too, that Hamadeh believes the 2020 election was stolen, despite any evidence of widespread fraud.
• “Consider that he says he would not have certified the 2020 election, prepared apparently to violate the state law that would have required the attorney general to do so.
• “Consider that within an hour of learning earlier this month that the FBI was searching Mar-a-Lago – a search for classified documents that was approved by a federal magistrate judge – Hamadeh went absolutely beserk.”
• “Our justice system has been HIJACKED,” he tweeted. “Our FBI has been CORRUPTED. It’s time to restore LAW & ORDER.”

Arizonans will reject this disturbing, reckless behavior and history from a candidate who wants to be the state’s top lawyer. Hamadeh has no place in the Office of Attorney General.

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