Heap told feds he welcomed probe into Maricopa County elections

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

New records show a top Maricopa County official directly corresponded with the U.S. Department of Justice last year about election records and litigation as the department sought to obtain Arizona’s voter roll and probe the county’s past elections.

The emails, obtained by watchdog group American Oversight and shared exclusively with Votebeat, show Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap signaling support for the Trump administration’s investigation into his own county’s elections. The county, home to Phoenix, is a key election battleground.

The records also suggest that Heap, a Republican, met with Arizona’s top federal prosecutor just before the DOJ informed the county it was looking into its past elections, raising questions about his level of coordination with federal law enforcement officials.

In addition, the documents suggest that the recorder’s office withheld records from Votebeat. In March, Votebeat filed a public records request for copies of emails between Heap and the DOJ during the time period in question, but his office did not provide them. Under state law, public officials cannot withhold requested records without any basis, and doing so could lead to civil penalties.

Liz Hempowicz, deputy executive director of American Oversight, said Heap’s engagement with federal law enforcement officials amid the ongoing investigations, along with a recent push by his office to question certain voters’ eligibility, should “set off alarm bells.”

“Election officials have a duty to administer elections fairly, based on facts and evidence — not to blur the line between election administration and politicized law enforcement,” she said. “This pattern risks turning baseless suspicion into policy and sweeping eligible voters into investigations they should never be part of.”

Heap did not respond to a request for comment. Judy Keane, a spokesperson for his office, also did not respond to questions from Votebeat.

Support for DOJ efforts

In one of the newly revealed messages, Heap says he learned in mid-August 2025 that Maricopa County’s elections and information technology staff was planning to delete certain records from the 2020 and 2022 elections. In response, he sent a letter to Maricopa County Manager Jen Pokorski raising concerns about the county’s email retention policies.

Then, the records show Heap’s executive assistant coordinating a meeting between Heap and U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine on Aug. 27.

Around the same time, Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon began threatening legal action against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, questioning the state’s voter registration and list maintenance procedures and his refusal to share unredacted copies of the state voter roll.

Records separately obtained by Votebeat show that Dhillon had reached out to Fontes on Aug. 12 to warn of litigation. Then, on Sept. 4, Dhillon sent a letter to the state and Maricopa County instructing them to preserve all election records from 2020 to the present.

“It has come to our attention that the Maricopa Elections Department and Recorder intend to destroy election records from the 2020 and 2022 federal elections, including staff emails,” she wrote, adding that her office had “received complaints concerning errors and malfeasance in the conduct of the Maricopa County elections.”

“Please be advised that any attempt to destroy these and any other records will be construed by the Civil Rights Division as evidence of intentional spoliation of evidence,” she continued.

The next day, Heap wrote back to Dhillon and voiced support for her efforts.

“Please be assured that my office is committed to full cooperation with the Department of Justice as it conducts its investigation,” he wrote. “We share your goal of safeguarding election integrity and transparency, and we will continue to work with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that no records are lost, compromised, or destroyed.”

He added that his predecessor, GOP Recorder Stephen Richer, had transferred control of all election records to the county’s elections and information technology departments. Heap has repeatedly lamented that the county’s board of supervisors usurped his office’s power through that agreement with Richer, and he told Dhillon that he was no longer in charge of any documents she might seek from prior elections. However, he noted he was engaged in a legal battle with the supervisors, who have refuted his characterization of the dispute and the agreement, to regain control of the documents.

That caught the attention of Maureen Riordan, who was then acting chief of the Voting Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. She emailed Heap to ask him to forward the docket number for the litigation, which remains unresolved.

“If you can send the court documents and the next court date, that would be really helpful as well,” she wrote. “Thanks in advance.”

Elections scrutiny

Heap was first elected recorder in 2024 with the support of President Donald Trump’s allies who questioned the integrity of the 2020 election, and he has spent much of his term in office promoting election security — sometimes alongside Trump administration officials.

In February, Heap joined then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a hastily arranged press conference to promote federal legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. Hours after that event, he claimed that his office had identified 137 noncitizens on the county’s voter roll via a digital database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. Experts have long warned that the database — called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE — is unreliable.

Since then, Heap has said that he intends to change the registration status of those voters through a process that several election experts and lawyers called legally dubious. He also formally referred 207 voters to local prosecutors for investigation — significantly more than the 137 people that he previously flagged.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to investigate the 2020 election in Maricopa County — even though several prior reviews have found no evidence of widespread fraud or a stolen presidential race.

Last month, the FBI subpoenaed election records from the Arizona Senate, which conducted a controversial review of the county’s election results in 2021. Courchaine’s office issued the subpoena and is overseeing a grand jury impaneled in Phoenix.

Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of DHS that typically focuses on transnational narcotics and trafficking investigations, has also been probing past elections in recent months. Records previously obtained by Votebeat show that the agency asked the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for records from its 2020 election investigation.

In January, the DOJ officially filed its lawsuit against Fontes over the state’s voter roll. That case is still pending in federal court.

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org. Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.