Losing Arizona: Is Rep. David Cook an Insurrectionist?

This is part of a series from The Copper Courier highlighting the Arizona legislators involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection or the events leading up to it. Read the rest here.

Rep. David Cook was born in Oklahoma and relocated to Arizona’s Gila County in 1985. He worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections before switching to the cattle business. He was elected to serve District 8, which spans central and eastern Pinal County and southern Gila County, in the Arizona House of Representatives in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020. 

Contributions to the Insurrection

Cook was a major proponent behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, frequently questioning the election results on Twitter. 

He was a fixture at a November daylong hearing at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix as Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis continuously made unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud in Arizona’s election.

Cook signed on to a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to accept 11 “alternate” electoral votes for Trump or to have all of the state’s electoral votes “nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”

Following the insurrection, Cook and other legislators faced calls to ban them from the House and Senate.

This legislative session, Cook is a co-sponsor of a bill that would require voters to present a photo ID to be placed on the permanent absentee voting list. 

How You May Have Heard of Them

Cook came under fire in 2020 after he was accused of carrying on an inappropriate romantic relationship with a former lobbyist for an agriculture trade group. A separate allegation also claimed that Cook bribed Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb with campaign contributions to prevent the tax debt seizure of a property owned by the woman and her former husband. 

Cook denied the relationship. The House Ethics Committee ultimately dropped the investigation, but stated its findings were “troubling.”

He is up for re-election in 2022.

Cook isn’t alone. See the others who played a role in the insurrection.