Allister Adel just proved why she isn't fit to continue as the county's top prosecutor

On Wednesday, a key member of Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel’s leadership team submitted a letter of resignation, giving three weeks’ notice that she can no longer carry on in a job that has become all about defending the “sobriety and leadership” of the county’s top prosecutor.

On Thursday, Communications Director Jennifer Liewer was escorted out of the office. Her computer and badge were confiscated and she was ordered to have no contact with any employee of the county attorney’s office during the remainder of her time on the county payroll.

For weeks, questions have swirled about what the heck is going on with Adel, who apparently is phoning it in these days. There are serious concerns being raised by serious people about her absence from the office. About her lack of leadership. About her sobriety.  

Add now a fourth important concern:

About vindictiveness, which is an exceedingly bad quality in a person who wields enormous power, as Adel does.

Liewer isn't the only one with concerns

Liewer has been with Adel since Adel became the county attorney in 2019. Before that, Liewer spent 20 years handling communications for a variety of agencies, including the cities of Phoenix and Glendale and the Arizona Supreme Court.

In short, she’s a pro and I doubt it was easy for her to hold up a mirror to Adel and ask her to take a peek.

To see what others see.

Like Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, who confronted Adel in November after one of her top aides raised the alarm about slurred speech and Adel’s general demeanor.

“I said to her, ‘I’ve got concerns. There have been concerns raised to me that you’ve been drinking again,’ ” Gates told The Arizona Republic’s Robert Anglen last week. “She did not deny it.”

Like former longtime Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who says the office is in turmoil, cast adrift by a county attorney who is never there and solidly in over her head.

“It really saddens me,” Romley told Anglen earlier this week. “She is not doing the job ... and she doesn’t understand how much harder she is making the job.”

The county attorney job requires a clear head

Then there are all the people, inside and outside the office, who won’t go on the record but privately describe a county attorney who is unable to cope with the strain and the pressure of leading an office of more than 1,000 employees in the state’s largest prosecutorial agency.

It’s a big jump from her previous job as executive director of the Maricopa County Bar Association.

This is a woman who makes the ultimate decision on who to charge with crimes in Maricopa County. On who to put in prison and often, for how long. On whether to ask that someone be put to death.

She sets the tone and has enormous power over the lives of thousands of people in this county.

She has to be present. She has to have sound judgment. She has to have a clear head.

Yet earlier this week, Adel said in a radio interview that she spent 29 days in a rehab facility last fall.

“I was there 29 days, well, 29 and a half technically, because I started my recovery path getting treatment in Wickenburg and then I transferred out to the Meadows in California,” Adel told KJZZ, the Phoenix public radio station.

She was there for 19 days.

Adel's chief of staff called it a “simple mistake.”

Is this really who Allister Adel is?

Adel, meanwhile, insists that she's fine, that she’s only had a “couple of sips of wine” since leaving rehab five months ago and is doing her “very best” to run the office.

“Accusations like that are a distraction,” she said. “I have been very clear, I am working. ... We are doing great things.”

Count Liewer among Adel’s one-time supporters who, in her letter of resignation, tells a different story.

“I understand that my departure will no doubt further thrust the talented communications professionals I work with at this office into the untenable situation of communicating with the media regarding the sobriety and leadership of the County Attorney,” Liewer wrote. “As I have repeatedly conveyed, I believe the best use of the communications team is to communicate about the work of the office – not in defending the county attorney.”

Liewer could have issued the standard “leaving to spend more time with the family” letter of resignation. Instead, she made the courageous call to refuse to cover any longer for Adel.

For that, she was promptly tossed out by a clearly angry top prosecutor who sorely needs to pick up that mirror that Liewer tried to point her way.

We can't toss her out. But she must resign

Unlike Liewer, no one can toss out Allister Adel. She was elected by voters in 2020 and unless she abandons the job or is charged with a crime, she alone decides whether she will continue on in a job that impacts thousands upon thousands of people who deserve and expect a prosecutor who is at the top of her game.

Instead, we have one who is living on planet denial where no mirrors are allowed.

“I continue to address my eating disorder and alcohol use,” she said, in a statement last week. “As you can imagine, this is a journey, and I am committed to working the vigorous programs that my doctors and counselors recommend. I am not perfect, have never claimed to be perfect, and remain firm in my desire to be better and stay healthy.”

I wish you all the best in your journey to be better and stay healthy, Ms. Adel.

But it’s a journey best taken when you don’t hold the lives of so very many people, literally, in the palm of your hand. 

You should resign.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.