Arizona county Republican leader threatened to ‘lynch’ election official

A Republican in Arizona’s largest county threatened to “lynch” the top county election official during a public event three months ago, according to a newly unearthed video clip circulating on social media.

The election official, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, posted a video of the comment to X on Monday.

In it, Maricopa Republican Party Vice Chair Shelby Busch points to one of Richer’s reelection campaign opponents and calls him a “good Christian man.” She then contrasts him with Richer, who is Jewish.

“If Stephen Richer walked in this room, I would lynch him,” Busch says in the video. “I don’t unify with people who don’t believe in the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country.”

In a statement to POLITICO Tuesday, Busch said the remark “was a joke.”“Everyone knows that I don’t like Richer,” Busch wrote. “The statement was a joke and made in jest. I do not condone and would never condone violence against anyone. It was hyberbole.”The remark was made during a March 20 campaign event in Mesa, Ariz., for Republican Jerone Davison, who is running for a U.S. House seat, and was first live streamed on the conservative social media platform Rumble.

Davison on Monday defended Busch on X as a “woman of faith” and said she was not expressing “any kind of racial hatred.”