EXCLUSIVE: Keystone Cops or Cowl-Up? How Arizona AG Kris Mayes Has Dealt with Investigation Involving Fellow Democrat – Governor Katie Hobbs
How the Hobbs-Sunshine Referral Turned a Felony Investigation —and the 2-12 months Struggle Over Who Would Conduct It
By Linda Brickman
From “Reporter” Mayes to “Reported” on Mayes – Half 1
SECTION 1 — ONE REFERRAL. TWO PROSECUTORS.
It started with a query.
On June 5, 2024, Arizona State Senator T.J. Shope referred allegations involving Sunshine Residential Properties to each (Democrat) Arizona Legal professional Common Kris Mayes and (Republican) Maricopa County Legal professional Rachel Mitchell. (The alligations have been related to Democrat Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs.)
Shope was not asserting {that a} crime had been dedicated. He was asking prosecutors to find out whether or not the allegations warranted investigation. AG Mayes answered rapidly.
The Attorney General’s Office would open a criminal investigation.
Thus far, pretty easy.
Then got here June 7.
Mayes wrote directly to Mitchell, acknowledging that Shope had referred the matter to each places of work and that Mitchell was planning — or had already begun — her personal investigation. Mayes additionally famous that Mitchell had contacted Arizona Auditor Common Lindsey Perry about coordinating their work.
Then Mayes drew a line. “It will not be acceptable or in one of the best curiosity of the state to conduct parallel investigations into the identical matter.”
Mayes warned {that a} separate Maricopa County investigation may jeopardize the integrity of the prison investigation her workplace meant to pursue. She informed Mitchell that if the Legal professional Common’s Workplace wanted help from both Mitchell or the Auditor Common, Mayes’s workplace would attain out.
Mayes sent a similar message to Auditor General Perry that very same day. Perry’s help with Mitchell’s investigation, Mayes wrote, was not wanted by the Legal professional Common’s Workplace at the moment.
In forty-eight hours, the story had modified. The query was now not merely: Ought to the Sunshine allegations be investigated?
Mayes had already answered that. Sure.
The brand new query was: Who ought to be doing the investigating?
And that query would develop into significantly extra difficult. As a result of Rachel Mitchell didn’t step apart.
SECTION 2. MITCHELL SAYS NO
Mayes could have wished one investigation. Rachel Mitchell had different plans.
On June 11, Maricopa County Legal professional Rachel Mitchell responded to Mayes and made clear that her office would continue its own investigation into Sunshine Residential Properties and would prosecute if the proof warranted prosecution.
Mitchell’s concern went past jurisdiction. She warned that public confidence mattered, notably when the allegations touched Arizona’s highest elected officers. She informed Mayes that insisting on being the sole investigator may deepen public mistrust somewhat than resolve it.
Now Arizona had one thing uncommon:
- Two elected prosecutors.
- One set of allegations.
- And neither one was leaving.
Mayes maintained that parallel investigations may compromise the integrity of her prison investigation and create pointless duplication. That concern was not frivolous. Former Arizona Supreme Courtroom Justice Andrew Gould publicly agreed that a number of businesses interviewing the identical witnesses and requesting the identical data may complicate or sluggish an investigation.
However Mayes’s try to take management of the investigation instantly drew one other form of scrutiny.
On June 10, State Representative David Livingston demanded that Mayes recuse herself.
Livingston argued that Maricopa County’s elected county legal professional possessed impartial prosecutorial authority over offenses dedicated throughout the county and accused Mayes of trying to say jurisdiction over an investigation involving Governor Hobbs, the Arizona Democratic Get together, Sunshine Residential Properties and DCS.
That was Livingston’s accusation, not a longtime discovering.
However he pointed to an undisputed reality that will develop into central to the controversy:
Livingston additionally challenged Mayes’s reliance on Arizona regulation regarding the Auditor Common. Mayes had argued that as a result of the Legal professional Common supervises prosecutions arising from Auditor Common investigations, a separate Mitchell-Auditor Common investigation mustn’t proceed. Livingston countered that Arizona regulation additionally authorizes the Auditor Common to work with county attorneys and that the County Legal professional’s prosecutorial authority had not merely vanished as a result of the Legal professional Common entered the case.
So, what started as a referral about attainable wrongdoing involving a foster-care supplier had develop into one thing else:
A Dispute Over Investigative Management.
And that distinction issues.
There may be no proof merely from these letters that Mayes was attempting to guard Katie Hobbs. There may be additionally no query that Mayes tried to forestall a parallel investigation by Mitchell and the Auditor Common. These are two very totally different statements. The primary requires proof of motive.
The second is contained in Mayes’s personal correspondence. And Mitchell refused.
Which leaves an apparent query:
Why was management of the Sunshine investigation vital sufficient for Arizona’s Legal professional Common to inform two different investigative places of work to face down nearly instantly after opening her personal case?
Earlier than trying to reply that query, nevertheless, we have to perceive what had landed on the prosecutors’ desks within the first place.
As a result of Sunshine Residential Properties was not merely one other state contractor.
- There was cash.
- There have been political contributions.
- There was a state contract.
- And there was one very uncommon price improve.
SECTION 3. FOLLOW THE MONEY — AND THE RATE HIKE
Why did Sunshine Residential Properties appeal to the eye of two prosecutors within the first place?
As a result of the chronology was troublesome to disregard.
Sunshine Residential Properties operated roughly 30 group properties in Maricopa County for kids faraway from their households by the Division of Little one Security. It was one of many largest suppliers of group-home beds in Arizona. It was additionally politically beneficiant.
Earlier than Katie Hobbs grew to become Governor, Sunshine donated $200,000 to the Arizona Democratic Get together shortly earlier than the 2022 election.
Then got here the inaugural celebration.
Sunshine contributed $100,000 to Hobbs’s inaugural fund. Sunshine CEO Simon Kottoor served on Hobbs’s inaugural committee, personally contributed to her marketing campaign, and his firm introduced Hobbs with an award roughly one month earlier than the election.
- Political contributions, after all, are usually not crimes.
- Neither is serving on an inaugural committee.
The issue was what occurred subsequent…
In December 2022, Sunshine requested a price improve from the Division of Little one Security. DCS denied the request in February 2023.
Sunshine tried once more in Could. This time, the request was accepted.
And based on reporting on the time the controversy erupted, Sunshine was the one group-home supplier beneath the Hobbs administration to obtain a person price improve outdoors the routine contract-renewal course of.
Ultimately, 52 different suppliers acquired will increase throughout common contract negotiations in June 2024. However Sunshine had acquired its particular improve earlier. That sequence produced the query that landed on Senator Shope’s desk:
Did political cash have something to do with the federal government cash that adopted?
No prosecutor had answered that query when Shope made his referral. And the existence of contributions adopted by favorable state motion doesn’t, by itself, show bribery, fraud or pay-to-play.
However Shope believed the circumstances were serious enough to ask prosecutors to look at attainable violations involving bribery, fraud, procurement, conflicts of curiosity and the expenditure of state funds. Mayes agreed that the allegations warranted a prison investigation. So did Mitchell. And that brings us again to the peculiar a part of this story.
If each prosecutors agreed there was sufficient right here to research, why did Arizona’s Legal professional Common imagine solely one in every of them ought to be doing it?
There was one other complication…
The particular person on the high of the administration being examined was not merely one other public official. She was Governor Katie Hobbs — a fellow Democrat.
That reality doesn’t set up a battle. However it made public confidence within the independence of the investigation notably vital. And it made what occurred subsequent not possible to dismiss as a easy bureaucratic disagreement. As a result of the dispute over Sunshine didn’t finish in June 2024.
Two years later, the case was nonetheless open.
SECTION 4. TWO YEARS LATER — STILL OPEN
Mayes wished one investigation… Arizona ultimately obtained multiple.
By 2026, the Legal professional Common’s investigation remained lively. Maricopa County Legal professional Rachel Mitchell was conducting her personal investigation into the identical underlying allegations. And in February, the Arizona House retained independent outside counsel to assessment data, conduct interviews and report findings regarding the Sunshine-DCS controversy.
Practically two years after Mayes first informed Mitchell that parallel investigations weren’t within the state’s finest curiosity, Mitchell was nonetheless investigating…And Mayes nonetheless had not completed hers.
Then one other uncommon improvement surfaced.
By April 2026, Mayes’s investigators had requested an interview with Governor Hobbs. Hobbs publicly declined to say whether or not she would agree to 1, though she continued to disclaim wrongdoing and mentioned she anticipated the investigation in the end to verify that she had not been concerned in DCS’s resolution regarding Sunshine.
By July 30, there was still no interview date.
Mayes’s workplace had reportedly been searching for an interview with Hobbs for a lot of the 12 months, whereas the Governor’s Workplace and Legal professional Common’s Workplace remained in discussions about whether or not and when that interview would happen. Then, on August 3, Mayes supplied the clearest indication but that one thing was coming.
She mentioned her workplace was “near the end of the investigation” and promised an announcement earlier than the November election. She wouldn’t say whether or not that announcement would come with info obtained instantly from Hobbs, who nonetheless had not agreed to take a seat for the requested interview.
That creates one other curious query. If the investigation was almost completed, how may investigators attain a last conclusion about allegations touching the Governor’s administration with out first acquiring the Governor’s account?
Maybe they’ll … Maybe paperwork and different witnesses present the solutions investigators want.
Greater than two years later, Arizona nonetheless doesn’t know what Mayes’s investigation discovered — or why a case vital sufficient to ask different investigators to step apart has taken this lengthy.
And the Legislature did precisely what Mayes initially argued in opposition to:
It introduced in one other investigator.
The Home retained outdoors counsel in February 2026 to independently look at the Sunshine matter, assessment data and conduct interviews. So, the IRONY is troublesome to overlook.
In June 2024, Mayes warned that a number of investigations may jeopardize the integrity of the case.
By 2026, a number of investigations have been precisely what Arizona had.
And the unique query remained unanswered: What occurred between Sunshine Residential Properties, the Hobbs Administration and the Division of Little one Security?
However now one other query belongs beside it: What occurred contained in the investigation itself?
SECTION 5. THE CLOCK IS TICKING
Mayes’s promised pre-election announcement provides one last complication:
Each Mayes and Hobbs are searching for reelection.
That doesn’t show political interference.
However after greater than two years, Arizona voters are entitled to one thing less complicated:
AN ANSWER!
- Did political contributions affect the therapy Sunshine Residential acquired?
- Why did Mayes initially search to forestall Mitchell from conducting a parallel investigation?
- And what has the Legal professional Common’s investigation in the end discovered?
- Was anybody being protected — or did the dealing with of the investigation create the looks of a cover-up?
Mayes says an announcement is coming BEFORE Election Day.
Till then, the Sunshine Case Stays Open. So Do the Questions.
Keystone Cops or Cowl-Up?
By Linda Brickman
©2026 Linda Brickman. All Rights Reserved.
Coming NEXT IN THE KRIS MAYES FILE…
PART 2 — ARIZONA’S ATTORNEY GENERAL GOES TO WAR WITH WASHINGTON
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