Reporting Authority
Statement
This complaint alleges that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Assistant Attorney General Mitchell Allee authorized, transmitted, adopted, or ratified an opaque criminal-enforcement demand calculated to obfuscate official responsibility, obstruct public accountability, and impair protected public-interest reporting. On June 30, 2026, the Attorney General’s Special Investigations Section assigned Case No. xxx-xxxx-xxxx and issued an unsigned Criminal Division letter accusing the operator of displaying Arizona’s great seal without approval. The letter invoked A.R.S. § 41-130, emphasized exposure to a class 3 misdemeanor, and demanded removal of the seal from “any and all” websites.
The demand concealed the identity of every responsible prosecutor, investigator, and supervisor. It provided no signature, direct contact, supporting referral, evidence of absent approval, determination that the displayed image violated the statute, or evidence establishing the required knowing mental state. It asserted website ownership merely as the Office’s “belief,” attributed the accusation to the Secretary of State without identifying the referring official, and expanded its demand beyond the single webpage identified. By converting an image-use dispute into a numbered Criminal Division matter while withholding the identity and reasoning of the responsible officials, the Office created the coercive force of a criminal threat while frustrating any meaningful opportunity to confront the allegation, challenge its basis, preserve an accountable record, or seek review. Those omissions constitute affirmative obfuscation and impairment, not harmless administrative deficiencies.
The target of this concealed enforcement action was a public platform publishing criticism of Arizona’s disclosure failures. That context, combined with the anonymous invocation of criminal authority, raises substantial concerns of retaliatory enforcement, abuse of prosecutorial power, and intentional interference with governmental oversight. Whether A.R.S. § 41-130 could support a properly documented removal request does not excuse using criminal process to burden a critic while shielding the responsible decisionmakers. If Mayes and Allee knowingly directed, transmitted, defended, or ratified this method, their conduct implicates the prosecutor’s duty to act as a minister of justice, ER 4.4(a)’s prohibition against using means having no substantial purpose other than to burden another, supervisory duties under ER 5.1 and 5.2, and ER 8.4(c) and (d)’s prohibitions against misrepresentation and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The conduct constitutes potential impeachment disclosure material because it bears directly upon candor, motive, bias, abuse of authority, and professional fitness.
