Arizona President Kelli Ward speaks during the Gather to Defend our Elections conference on July 24, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Brandon Bells | beautiful pictures
The Supreme Court on Monday denied Arizona Republican Chairman Kelli Ward’s request to prevent her phone records from being selected by a House committee investigating the January 6 riots at the Palace of Justice. Capitol convened.
The refusal set the stage for the Democratic-controlled House committee to obtain those records from her T-Mobile account.
The order denying Ward and her husband Michaels an emergency order notes that Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will grant it.
Justice Elena Kagan last month temporarily blocked the subpoena to allow her and other judges to review the request from the Wards, who argued that the subpoena compromised their rights to First Amendment political association.
Ward was subpoenaed for records by the committee for her role as a so-called alternative elector candidate for then-President. Donald Trump, who lost Arizona’s popular vote in the 2020 election, and thus lost the state’s list of actual Electoral College members. Chairperson Joe Biden won the popular vote of the state and its electors.
The January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol by Trump supporters disrupted for hours a joint session of Congress that was meeting to confirm the election results of the Electoral College in favor of Biden.
Ward’s attorneys argued in her request to block the subpoena that, “If Dr. Ward’s phone records and text messages are revealed, congressional investigators will be involved contact everyone who contacted her during and immediately after the tumultuous 2020 election.”
“It’s not speculation, it’s a certainty,” the lawyers wrote. “There’s nothing colder than when
public participation in partisan politics rather than a call, visit, or subpoena, from the federal
investigator.”
Alexander Kolodin, Ward’s attorney, said Monday, “We are pleased to see that the two judges are willing to find that First Amendment issues have involved” the subpoena.
“We hope that will be a message to those who in the future think of abusing that right to retaliate against Americans for exercising their First Amendment freedom of association,” Kolodin said.
