Federal authorities are investigating allegations that Attorney General Tom Horne illegally collaborated with an independent expenditure committee that spent more than a half-million dollars on negative ads against his Democratic opponent in 2010, the Arizona Capitol Times has learned.
A complaint filed in February by a prosecutor in Horne’s own office – and a onetime political ally of Horne – alleges that the attorney general collaborated with an independent expenditure called Business Leaders for Arizona, which received $115,000 from Horne’s brother-in-law in California.