There are indications this morning that some of the text messages between Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump and various parties during last Fall’s election will be made public. A former judge has been named to review thousands of texts the Attorney General’s office says it's recovered from Stump’s state-issued cellphone. They come from both his current phone and one he threw out.
At issue are messages exchanged with Republican candidates Doug Little and Tom Forese ahead of the GOP primary and those with a group that spent $300,000 to get the pair elected. The development comes in a suit filed by the pro-solar-energy Checks and Balances Fund. Group attorney Dan Barr saidthe judge will only determine whether the texts fit the definition of a public record.
“If Corporation Commissioner Stump has any claim that [the texts are] privileged or that they're somehow private, or something like that, they would assert that," Barr said. "And we would counter all of that.”
That would force Superior Court Judge Randall Warner to decide what the public can see. In an email, Stump said he will fight the release of intimate private texts, but that whatever is released will show he has done nothing wrong.