On Thursday, the #LawyerForThePeople called a press conference to announce that a grand jury had indicted five suspects in a scheme to defraud Arizona’s universal voucher program.
That’s not entirely true.
She wasn’t really at the press conference to announce indictments.
She was there to make them.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes stood before the media horde and indicted — not in the legal, but purely political sense — the Republicans who designed and now operate the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.
“This program is ripe for abuse,” she told the media.
In a sit-down with 12 News reporter Brahm Resnik, she said, “The problem is that what this scam and scheme shows is that it’s very easy to cheat, and it’s very easy to get a fake birth certificate past the Arizona Department of Education. So why weren’t there more controls?”
Good question.
For which the #LawyerForThePeople had her ready answer.
“I think it starts with the Legislature that passed legislation that doesn’t have controls. It starts with educators who don’t care about fraud, waste or abuse, or they would have put some guardrails on this program.
“And it’s (Superintendent of Public Instruction) Tom Horne, you know. I mean, he sat in front of the cameras the other week and said there’s no fraud in the system and (they’re) rooting out all potential fraud. Obviously, that is not the case. This was happening under his own nose. It’s very problematic.”
Yes, very “problematic.” And, as the attorney general noted, “very easy” to pull off.
The latest grand jury indictments are proof.
Understand, these are merely charges. As noted in the attorney general’s news release, “All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”
But if proven guilty, the actions of the indicted five would represent a roadmap for ripping off the ESA system.
Call it “How to Succeed in Criminal Conspiracy Without Really Trying.”
Let’s stop here for a moment and consider what the grand jury learned.
That three of the charged were, in fact, employees of the Department of Education and are accused of working the scheme from the inside, with two other collaborators on the outside.
If you are Republicans confronted with a Democratic attorney general who says you have gaping security holes in your voucher program, you might want to begin with this one. The mother of all security holes.
You let the foxes into the henhouse.
Except, you didn’t let the foxes into the henhouse.
Democrats did.
Those three former Department of Education employees indicted by the grand jury were hired by the administration of former Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman.
A Democrat.
Oh, well, the Republicans still designed the program and then ran it when Tom Horne took over the department at the beginning of 2023.
They’re the ones who made it so easy to rip off. Just look at the grand jury roadmap.
It’s so easy that any Joe Schmo who drives over the speed limit by 5 mph or pulls the manufacturer’s tags off pillows could be tempted to also rip off hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.
Arizona finds ESA fraud:1 angry ex at a time
Once they’ve followed the first easy steps and found like-minded co-conspirators and infiltrated the Department of Education and the ESA office, the rest is also a snap, as outlined by the Attorney General’s news release:
Like I said. A snap. Any Schmo could do this.
And so, the #LawyerForThePeople, who ran on the promise that she would de-politicize the Arizona Attorney General’s Office that her Republican predecessor had turned into a Camp Rally for conspiracy-minded Republicans, has now indicted the conservative project of school choice and universal vouchers.
The teacher’s unions are cheering. Democrats are doing the wave.
Later when they join the other progressives in the Kris Mayes conga line, they’ll do so joyously, knowing something the larger Arizona public may not.
The #LawyerForThePeople is really the #LawyerForTheLiberals.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
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