Top Maricopa County GOP Official Said She’d ‘Lynch’ Election Official

A high-ranking Republican in Maricopa County, Arizona, said earlier this year that she would “lynch” one of the county’s top election officials if he walked into the room.

At an event in March for a GOP congressional candidate, Shelby Busch, the first vice chair of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, spoke about the importance of finding “unity” with “good, Christian” people before mentioning county recorder Stephen Richer.

Richer is the elected official in charge of overseeing elections in the county, along with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. He has become a target for Arizona Republicans because, despite being a Republican himself, he has stood up for the integrity of electionsand shot down baseless conspiracy theoriesabout widespread fraud. (He’s also up for reelection this year.)

“Let’s pretend that this gentleman over here was running for county recorder, and he’s a good, Christian man that believes what we believe. We can work with that, right? That’s unity,” Busch said, pointing to someone in the crowd. “That’s saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to shake hands and we’re going to agree that we’re going to run a good, Christian foundation campaign, and we’re going to treat each other well, and we’re going to get through this together, right?’ That’s unity.”

She continued, “But if Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him. I don’t unify with people who don’t believe in 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 posted a clip of Busch’s comments from March 20 on X (formerly Twitter) Monday, saying in another post that the clip was “just shared with me this weekend.”

Busch