EXCLUSIVE: Arizona Campaign Aide Flagged Internship for Donor’s Son After Father Cited Mayes’s Offer

A campaign aide to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sought action from senior officials in her office on an internship request for a campaign donor’s son after the father said Mayes had personally offered the opportunity, according to email screenshots reproduced in research obtained by the California Globe.

The correspondence shows Grace Forster forwarding Tim Riester’s request five minutes after it was sent, then following up five days later with agency officials and Mayes. Chief Deputy Attorney General Bill Mundell responded that someone from the office would contact Riester’s son, Finn, a law student who subsequently listed a summer internship with the office’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit.

Campaign-finance data compiled by Transparency USA lists two contributions from Tim Riester to Mayes—$1,000 and $375, totaling $1,375—dated November 05, 2021, and November 17, 2025. In a later email, Riester identified November 18 as the date of the event, when he said Mayes met his son and offered the internship.

The screenshots do not identify the event as a fundraiser or establish that the contribution influenced the placement.

The January correspondence began with an email bearing the subject line “Quick question from Tim Riester.” At 12:26 p.m. on January 22, 2026, Riester contacted Forster at her krismayes.com campaign address and copied Finn.

“When I was with Kris at her event on November 18th, she met my son Finn who is in law school and offered him an internship with the AG’s office this summer,” Riester wrote.

“Who should Finn contact to follow up on that generous invitation? He would definitely like to participate as a legal intern and learn as much as possible!” he added, according to the reproduced email.

Five minutes later, Forster forwarded the request with the message, “Flagging for whoever can take care of this.” 

Forster’s campaign connection is also documented outside the supplied report. A Mayes campaign fundraising page identifies her as a contact, and campaign-finance data compiled by Transparency USA lists payments to her categorized as payroll.

On January 27, at 11:58 a.m., Forster followed up with Mundell, Emily McConnico, Delaney Corcoran, and Mayes. The header displays azag.gov addresses for Mundell, McConnico, and Corcoran, alongside Mayes’s campaign-domain address.

“Any movement on this? Please let me know how I can help,” Forster wrote. Mundell responded approximately nine minutes later: “I will have someone from our office contact him.” The state’s agency directory identifies Mundell as chief deputy and McConnico as executive assistant.

In a public LinkedIn post, Finn Riester described interning with the Attorney General’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit, participating in research and working-group calls, and traveling to Nogales for youth tobacco-prevention work. He thanked Mayes, the Tobacco Enforcement Unit’s attorneys, and others who helped make the internship possible.

The internship screenshots do not specify compensation, selection criteria, or whether other applicants were considered. 

Transparency USA lists two contributions from Tim Riester to Mayes: $1,000 on November 5, 2021, and $375 on November 17, 2025, totaling $1,375. The entries identify his occupation as CEO and his employer as Riester Corporation. 

Separate email records supplied with the report show official correspondence being sent to Mayes at an address using the krismayes.com domain.

 On June 28, 2023, Mundell forwarded an update about a Cox Communications investigation and a scheduled settlement meeting to that address. On July 2, he forwarded a legislator’s request for a formal opinion concerning a dual-language instruction program. 

A July 4 email copied the same address as a blind recipient while Mundell sought Maureen Scott’s participation in a meeting concerning settlement negotiations with Frontier. An August 12, 2024, email from communications director Richie Taylor sent Mayes a script for an upcoming Bitcoin video; the recipient hyperlink points to her campaign-domain address. 

Other messages were addressed to both the campaign-domain account and a government contact identified as Mayes. A September 13, 2023, chain concerning the governor’s rejection of approval for a Riverview Dairy bond project shows the material going to Mayes’s azag.gov address before Mundell forwarded it to her campaign-domain account. 

The Arizona Ombudsman–Citizens’ Aide advises that emails sent or received by public officials concerning public business constitute public records regardless of the email account used. The Attorney General’s Office likewise states that its work-related records are presumed public, subject to applicable confidentiality laws and privileges. 

The records reviewed by California Globe leave unresolved how Finn Riester’s internship was evaluated and approved, and how official correspondence sent to Mayes’s campaign-domain account was preserved and searched.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office and Mayes’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.