County Attorney Allister Adel/Maricopa County photo
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Maricopa County is taking the first steps to what could be a lawsuit against the Senate.
In a letter Friday, County Attorney Allister Adel demanded that Senate President Karen Fann preserve all communications related to the audit. These range from internal memos within the Senate all the way to social media posts.
All that, she said, is part of a legal maneuver known as a “litigation hold notice and document preservation request.” That allows attorneys contemplating a lawsuit to demand that a prospective defendant does not destroy materials that could help prove their case.
More to the point, it puts prospective defendants on notice they have a duty to preserve evidence that they know or should know is relevant or face court sanctions.
Strictly speaking, Adel does not explain her legal theory.
But her letter suggests, at the very least, a libel suit against senators and those involved in the audit who put out what Adel said were false statements that the county had deleted an entire database directory from the election equipment. That even included a post on the Senate audit’s official Twitter account saying the directory was deleted days before the election equipment was delivered.
