A hacker exploited a vulnerability in a Maricopa County, Arizona, website and obtained more than 600,000 voter registration files shortly before the 2020 election, according to newly declassified FBI and intelligence community records released Thursday.The FBI eventually identified the alleged hacker, searched his Arizona home, and obtained an admission that he had written a computer script to exploit the vulnerability, the records show. But federal, state, and local prosecutors declined to bring charges, and the FBI ultimately closed the investigation in 2023.The documents were released by the White House Government Transparency Task Force as part of the Trump administration’s examination of election security surrounding the 2020 contest. John Solomon, founder and editor-in-chief of Just the News, who also serves as a special government employee, previewed the records Thursday morning and has played a prominent role in recent administration releases of declassified material related to the election and investigations of President Donald Trump.
The latest disclosure brings that scrutiny back to Maricopa County, which became a focal point of disputes over the 2020 election after Joe Biden narrowly carried Arizona, and even became the site of a full-scale audit of the county’s vote, commissioned by the then-Republican state Senate president Karen Fann.Some of the 2.1 million ballots cast during the 2020 election are brought in for recounting at an election ballot audit ordered by the Republican-led Arizona Senate at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum during a news conference on April 22, 2021, in Phoenix. (Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo, file)
