Abe Hamadeh once bragged of committing voter fraud. But that's not why he's unfit to be AG

You should not take a pass on voting for Abe Hamadeh because of his prior boast that he committed voter fraud to help Barack Obama become president.

You shouldn’t consider whether a guy who once proposed that only college graduates who can pass intelligence tests should be allowed vote – “not people who just go to a DMV and sign up to vote”, according to a report by the Phoenix New Times’ Elias Weiss.

Or whether his past antisemitic rants make him a questionable choice to be Arizona’s next attorney general.

He was 17, after all, and kids do and say dumb things.

But you absolutely should consider the things he says and does now that he’s 31.

These days, Hamadeh sounds more like a toddler than a teen – or a fully grown adult.

It's up to voters to decide whether he's qualified

Hamadeh is running for one the state’s most important jobs, having snookered Donald Trump into endorsing him with a deft sleight of hand that made it appear as if he’d raised a million dollars for his campaign.

He graduated from law school in 2016 and spent several years as a low-level prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office while also serving 18 months overseas in the Army Reserve. Serial speeders have likely spent more time in court than this guy.

Stark differences:Abe Hamadeh and Kris Mayes offer major contrasts

Still, enough Republican voters evidently valued Hamadeh’s vast experience enough to elevate him over the rest of the GOP field, which included experienced prosecutors, veteran attorneys and a former state Supreme Court justice.

Now it is up to Arizona voters to determine whether Hamadeh is the right person to become Arizona’s top prosecutor – to protect consumers from fraud, go after white collar and organized criminals, root out public corruption and enforce the state’s environmental laws and civil rights laws.

Don’t think about the ravings of 17-year-old Hamadeh. Consider the tantrums of 31-year-old Hamadeh. Whether he possesses the experience, emotional maturity and intellectual honesty needed to ascend to the No. 3 job in the state.

Hamadeh's response to the story is telling

Consider his response to Tuesday’s New Times story about his youthful writings – a story that also pointed out that his father, a man once suspected of conspiring to fire-bomb a synagogue, was here illegally. The elder Hamadeh was allowed to remain in the country because his son, Abe, is a U.S. citizen.

“The media hates minority Republicans,” the younger Hamadeh tweeted late on Tuesday, several hours after the story broke.

One might think that an emotionally mature candidate for an important public office would have offered a more reasoned lawyer-like response, perhaps explaining how the son of an illegal immigrant now vows to arrest immigrants who are here illegally. Or how his views have changed as he has (supposedly) grown to maturity.

His Kris Mayes tweets are even more revealing

Consider the things Hamadeh says about his Democratic opponent, Kris Mayes, a former Arizona Corporation Commissioner who now is a professor at ASU’s School of Global Sustainability and Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

“Professor Kris Mayes wants to force masks and vaccines on us. I will keep Arizona SAFE and FREE!,” Hamadeh tweeted on Tuesday, linking to a December tweet in which a masked Mayes urged people to schedule a COVID-19 booster shot.

“Kris Mayes is a crook. Insider trading, higher utilities, eliminate cash-bail, she’s a HYPOCRITE.”

“Kris Mayes will BANKRUPT Arizona businesses and bury them in lawsuits. And then she’ll bankrupt all of us once she imposes her Green New Deal on us.”

“Kris Mayes is a former journalist. It’s why the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party (the media) protect her. She’s one of them. Kris Mayes is CORRUPT.”

“Kris Mayes was out marching during the 2020 summer riots with the BLM movement. She hates the police. It’s why she gladly accepted Planned Parenthood’s endorsement who has called to defund them and vowed not to support any candidate who doesn’t subscribe to their views. Shameful”

“Kris Mayes is a radical leftist professor who will shove her woke agenda down our throats.”

“Kris Mayes is corrupt. She’s loud, angry, and radical. She wants to appoint a climate change CZAR on day 1. She wants to ELIMINATE cash-bail. She wants to DEFUND the police. She wants to BANKRUPT business. The media loves her because she was a journalist. They are FAKE NEWS.”

All that, just in the last 24 hours.

He called someone a crook without evidence

Imagine an attorney general running around declaring someone a crook and corrupt despite a complete and total lack of evidence that it is so. Or boldly stating that she wants to ELIMINATE bail and DEFUND the police and BANKRUPT business.

Hamadeh is correct that Mayes was a journalist before going to law school. She worked for the Phoenix Gazette and later The Arizona Republic. She covered Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000 – back when Hamadeh was 9 years old.

He’s being, well, I’ll just call it disingenuous when he continues to paint her an opponent to law enforcement, ignoring her repeated statements that she supports the police. 

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 seach 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.”

An AG should operate on facts and the law

This, from an officer of the court – a candidate who wants a job that requires him to be governed not by crazy conspiracy theories or the jerk of his well-oiled knee but by facts and by the law. 

There’s a reason that Attorney General Mark Brnovich didn’t win Trump’s approval and thus the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate. It’s because, when it counted – when Republicans all around him were pouring on the pressure for arrests and perp walks of elections officials – he was governed by facts and by the law. 

You should not pass on voting for Abe Hamadeh because he once bragged about falsifying his mother’s early ballot to help Barack Obama. (“No, I cannot vote,” he wrote in a 2008 post. “I just submitted my mothers absentee ballot, she votes who I vote for, she voted for Ron Paul, and I’m saddened that I had to vote for Barack Obama, but it was the right thing I had to do.”)

Or because, at age 16, he called for targeting Jews. (“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.”)

It’s today’s temper tantrums and foot stomping fits of pique that should give you pause to wonder whether this clearly very young man is prepared to be Arizona’s attorney general.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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