Arizona AG Kris Mayes’ Top Deputy Asked the ACLU and Prison Law Office for Hiring Help, Emails Show, Fox News Reports
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ chief deputy repeatedly asked two legal groups that spent years suing the state’s prison system to help him find lawyers, according to internal emails obtained by Fox News Digital.
Fox reported that Chief Deputy Attorney General Daniel Barr asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Berkeley, California-based Prison Law Office for recommendations of attorneys to handle work for the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) inside the attorney general’s office, and later for candidates to be the department’s general counsel.
TDFP has not seen the emails. The account below is Fox News Digital’s.
WHAT THE KRIS MAYES EMAILS SHOW
According to Fox, Barr wrote to representatives of both groups in February 2023: “I am looking to bring as much ADCRR work back in-house as possible in the Arizona AG’s office. To do that, I need to hire attorneys to represent ADCRR in numerous capacities. If you know of anyone who may be interested in helping to turnaround things around here, please let me know.”
In April 2023, Fox reported, Barr forwarded the groups a posting for the ADCRR general counsel job and wrote, “Let me know if you have any suggested candidates.” When the job went unfilled, he wrote to them again. “Still no takers for the ADCRR general counsel job. If you have any suggestions, please let me know,” Barr wrote in a May 11, 2023, email, according to Fox.
The same day, Fox reported, ACLU National Prison Project Director David Fathi replied and promised to “redouble” his efforts to find a candidate.
Fox said the emails also show a cordial working relationship between Barr and staff at both groups, including a phone call Fathi requested in February 2023, which Barr answered within two minutes.
BARR’S HISTORY WITH THE GROUPS
Before joining Mayes’ office, Barr was a partner at the law firm Perkins Coie, where he litigated alongside the ACLU and the Prison Law Office in a federal case over Arizona’s prison conditions, according to Fox. A federal judge in that case found the state’s prison conditions constitutionally inadequate, Fox reported.
Fox noted that the ACLU has pushed to cut jail and prison populations by 50% and has published calls to divest from police, and that the Prison Law Office works to reduce incarceration. Those positions differ from Mayes’ public stance, Fox reported. During her 2022 campaign, Mayes answered “a resounding no” when asked whether she supported defunding the police, and her campaign website says she has been “a partner to law enforcement.”
WHAT IS NOT KNOWN
Fox said it obtained only emails, not call records or meeting notes, so it is unclear what other help, if any, the two groups gave the attorney general’s office. ADCRR ultimately hired a general counsel who, Fox reported, has no institutional affiliation with the ACLU or the Prison Law Office and whose name did not come up in the groups’ emails with Barr.
Fox reported that Barr, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the ACLU and the Prison Law Office did not respond to its requests for comment.
Sources: Fox News Digital (Oct. 16, 2026), https://www.foxnews.com/politics/moderate-ags-office-turned-groups-spent-years-suing-prisons-recruiting-help-emails-reveal
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