By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Phoenix police on Thursday arrested a person suspected of breaking into the campaign headquarters of Arizona Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs two days earlier.
Phoenix police said they made an arrest in connection to a burglary without specifying the Hobbs incident or identifying the person arrested. But a source with knowledge of the probe confirmed the arrest related to the campaign burglary.
“We are very thankful that the Phoenix Police Department acted so quickly to arrest a suspect,” Hobbs’ campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, said in a statement.
In recent days, Hobbs’ campaign and Republican opponent Kari Lake have traded barbs over the incident.
The Hobbs camp has criticized Lake, who has embraced Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread U.S. election fraud, for failing to condemn threats to election workers and voters. Hobbs’ campaign said Lake’s harsh rhetoric and embrace of Trump’s election falsehoods created the conditions for the burglary to take place.
Lake has called any attempt to blame her campaign “absolutely absurd.”
Last week, the Arizona secretary of state referred an instance of alleged voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Justice Department in what appeared to be the first nationwide criminal referral of its kind this election cycle.
Lake has repeatedly cast doubt on whether she would accept a possible defeat in Arizona.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)
