Former President Donald Trump slammed Arizona Sen. Paul Boyer (R) who criticized the chamber’s audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County.
The story: The former president issued a statement through his Sen. Paul Boyer Save America PAC on Thursday. The statement singled out Boyer, who Trump labeled a “RINO,” which stands for Republican in Name Only, and praised his primary challenger, former Arizona State Rep. Anthony Kern.
The statement: “Republican Arizona State Senator Paul Boyer, a RINO if there ever was one, is doing everything in his power to hold up the damning Forensic Audit of Maricopa County which has been taking place over the last 90 days. The people of Arizona are demanding it,” the statement reads.
“Boyer has been nothing but trouble, and nobody knows why. All we demand is Voter Integrity! He is being primaried by a strong and highly respected challenger, former Arizona State Representative Anthony Kern,” Trump added.
Kern thanked Trump for the statement on Twitter.
Boyer took a shot at the former president over his promise to build a border wall. He also accused him of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
“Had Trump built the wall like he promised, perhaps he could’ve prevented the 40k #BambooBallots from being imported into Arizona,” he tweeted. “And if he hadn’t started an insurrection in D.C. and gotten kicked off here, I could’ve responded directly to him. So there’s that.”
How we got here: Trump’s statement comes after Arizona Senate president Karen Fann tweeted that Boyer refused to vote in favor of holding the Maricopa Board of Supervisors in contempt because they refused to cooperate with the audit of the election.
“Boyer would not vote with us for the resolution of contempt which leaves us one vote short,” Fann said, in response to a question from Christian Lamar, who’s running for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Boyer fired back: “You told us in closed caucus the ‘audit’ would not cost taxpayers more than 150k and you wouldn’t divulge who you were hiring. Had you told us it was an inexperienced, partisan firm, I wouldn’t have been the only one to object.”
Worth noting: Boyer has been critical of Trump in the past.
In May, he said the audit “makes us look like idiots.”
“Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point,” Boyer said.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.