'Has to be ironclad': Arizona launches criminal probe into GOP efforts to overturn election

Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes has assigned a team of criminal prosecutors to investigate Republican efforts to overturn Donald Trump's election loss in the state.

Two sources told the Washington Post the Democratic attorney general assigned the case in May to prosecutors who are looking into attempts to subvert the election by signing and transmitting paperwork that falsely declared Trump the winner, and investigators have requested records and other evidence from local officials.

“This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” said Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy. “This has to be ironclad shut.”

Barr said that the case remained in a "fact-gathering phase," but the sources told the Post a prosecutor has also asked about evidence collected by the Department of Justice and Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis in similar investigations.

Mayes campaigned last year on a pledge to investigate the 22 Republicans, including state party chair Kelli Ward, who signed documents claiming to be electors chosen by the state for Trump in the Electoral College, although he got fewer votes than Joe Biden.

“There has to be a deterrent to this happening again,” she said. “We can’t have this occurring again in Arizona — or in the country.”