PHOENIX — Earlier this month, Shelby Busch — chair of Arizona’s delegation to the Republican convention — was in court trying to learn the identities of local elections workers. Under oath, she said she was unaware of any threats that had been made against the people who helped run the last presidential election and the midterm election that followed.
This week, video emerged that showed Busch saying she would “lynch” the official who helps oversee elections in Maricopa County: Stephen Richer, a fellow Republican.
“Let’s pretend that this gentleman over here was running for county recorder,” Busch said, seeming to refer to someone off-camera in the video, which was recorded at a public meeting in March. “And he’s a good Christian man that believes what we believe. We can work with that, right? That, that’s unity.”
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“But,” she said moments later, “if Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him. I don’t unify with people who don’t believe the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country. And so, I want to make that clear when we talk about what it means to unify.”
Richer, who posted the video on social media this week, is Jewish.
Busch said Thursday that “the statement was a joke and was said in jest.” She did not address additional questions.
“I do not condone and would never condone violence against anyone,” Busch said in a statement. “It was political hyperbole and no way meant as a threat of violence.”
Busch’s remarks have been referred to federal law enforcement, according to two people familiar with the referral who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, was central to Donald Trump’s reelection loss in 2020 — and to attempts by him and his allies to try to change the results. The county’s Republican-led governing board and its attorneys have faced waves of violent threats and criticism ever since. The hostile environment has caused mass resignations of election workers around the state and has contributed to the decision by two key Republicans who helped thwart attempts by Trump and his allies to reverse his loss not to run for reelection. Last year, a Texas man was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after he threatened Richer and a county lawyer.
Richer, a first-term recorder who is running for reelection and has drawn challengers from the right, said that threatening language tends to inspire others.
“Words matter, especially coming from people in leadership positions,” he said Thursday. “Even if you don’t mean something violent, when you use violent words, it creates a permission structure for others to go down that route.”
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The video also raises questions about whether Busch lied in court.
In 2022, a political action committee that Busch founded sued Richer and other county officials over their refusal to release the names of election employees who worked to verify voter signatures during the 2020 and 2022 elections. County officials redacted the names, citing an exception to the state’s public records law and arguing that the significant increase in threats against election officials warranted the exception.
The case went to trial earlier this month, and Busch testified that she wanted to interview past election employees to learn more about how they were trained to conduct signature verification on early-ballot envelopes. Busch also said she was unaware of any threats that had been made against Richer or his employees.
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The judge has yet to rule in the case. In an unusual move, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office late Wednesday asked the judge to reopen the evidence-gathering phase and watch the video of Busch. The office is led by a Republican.
“Despite threatening to murder Recorder Richer in this Video, Ms. Busch testified at trial” that she had “seen no evidence that threats had been made against Maricopa County election workers,” the county attorney’s office wrote. “That testimony was false and is directly contradicted by this earlier video.”
Over the past four years, Busch has been one of the leading voices in Arizona questioning the legitimacy of election results, vote-counting procedures and people who carry out the election process. Her political action committee, We the People AZ Alliance, has raised nearly $1 million since it was formed in late 2020, according to state campaign finance records. Entities linked to prominent election deniers such as former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock chief executive Patrick Byrne and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell have largely funded the committee.
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In addition to her activism work, Busch is the Maricopa County Republican Committee vice chair. Busch gained the attention of the Trump campaign earlier this month, which helped recruit Republicans to challenge her delegate position before reversing course.
Busch has framed her quest to unearth election fraud in Arizona — which has been debunked by independent investigators — in the language of a religious holy war.
“The enemy lives in the Republican Party. The enemy lives in the Democrat Party. And the enemy lives in our communities,” Busch said in a January interview with All Conservatives Media. “I’m going to stay in this fight until either the battle is won or Jesus comes back.”
The video has prompted little condemnation from Arizona’s more traditional Republicans and the business community, which has largely retreated from responding to political controversies in recent years. Richer’s colleague Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin (R) denounced the silence on social media earlier this week.
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“Not many Republican office holders or would-be electeds condemned this outrageous attack,” he wrote on X. “We’ll take note who didn’t.”
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s president and CEO, Danny Seiden, said in a statement that the “lynching” comment has “no place in our discourse” and does not “reflect the values of our people or its state or its people.”
Adam Goodman, a prominent businessman who leads a local organization opposing violent rhetoric and threats against election workers, condemned Busch’s comments. He said he blamed Trump for the “rise in violence and antisemitism.” Trump, he said, “has horribly failed” on setting the appropriate tone required of a national leader.
“I don’t believe it’s an idle threat, because we’ve seen too many acts of violence against election workers,” said Goodman, who describes himself as a political independent. Goodman said Busch “is sending a message to others that that is acceptable behavior.” Arizona, he said, is home to “a sector of the electorate who is not engaged with reality” and is “whipping each other up into a frenzy.”
“Violence,” he said, “is a real threat and possibility.”
Paybarah reported from Washington.
