# Mark Brnovich **Mark Brnovich** (died January 2026, age 59) was the Republican Attorney General of Arizona from 2015 to 2023. He was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. Before that he was a federal prosecutor and director of the state's gaming department. In this vault he matters for one thing: his office investigated the claims of the [[2021 Maricopa County Presidential Ballot Audit]], found them almost entirely baseless, and did not tell the public. ## The withheld findings His office's Special Investigations Section ran down the review's main allegations: the database matches, the claim that tabulators were connected to the internet, and the claim that county data had been deleted. It also looked at signature verification and chain of custody. A March 2022 interim summary faulted county officials for not following some state-mandated custody procedures. The fuller conclusion, in a September memo, was that nearly all of the review's findings were unfounded. It found "no evidence of election fraud." It identified only a handful of criminal cases, mostly double voting, some outside [[Maricopa County]]. That memo stayed in the office until his successor, [[Kris Mayes]], released it on **February 22, 2023**. Maricopa County Board chair Clint Hickman said he was "disgusted" that the findings showing a fair election had been concealed. ## Later Brnovich ran unsuccessfully for the 2022 Republican U.S. Senate nomination. In March 2025 [[Donald Trump]] named him U.S. ambassador to [[Serbia]], where both his parents came from. The White House withdrew the nomination in early October 2025 without giving a reason. Brnovich blamed "deep state" bureaucrats who, he said, did not want someone with his political, ethnic and religious background. His death was reported on January 13, 2026. No cause was given. ## Significance The review's sponsors asked for an investigation and got one, from a Republican attorney general. Its answer was the same as the county's. The pattern that matters is what happened next: the finding that cleared the election stayed unpublished until the next attorney general took office. In an election-denial environment, **what an official chooses not to publish works as an action too**. ## See also - [[2021 Maricopa County Presidential Ballot Audit]] · [[Cyber Ninjas]] · [[Kris Mayes]]