Following a thorough investigation into the alleged attempts to thwart Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s presidential election, a state grand jury in Arizona on Wednesday indicted Trump aides Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Boris Epsteineyn, along with so-called “fake electors” who supported the then-President Donald Trump in 2020.
About Arizona “fake electors”
Although Biden won the state by 10,457 votes and state officials confirmed his electors, eleven Trump supporters met at the Arizona GOP headquarters in Phoenix a month after the election of 2020 to sign a certificate claiming to be Arizona’s eleven electors to the Electoral College. The certificate was signed, and the state Republican Party mailed it to Congress and the National Archives, posting a video of the event on social media.
The indictment refers to Trump as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.” Additionally, the document lists the following individuals whose names have been redacted and who have been charged in the case but have not yet been served: Meadows, the former chief of staff for Trump in the White House; Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and Trump’s attorney; Epshteyn, a Trump campaign official and lawyer; Mike Roman, the former official for the Trump campaign and White House; Jenna Ellis, a former Trump attorney; and John Eastman, a different attorney who served as Trump’s legal adviser following the 2020 election.
Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona GOP during and immediately before the 2020 election, is also among those indicted in Arizona. Following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, she tweeted, “Congress is adjourned.” Return the electorate’s selection to the legislatures. Ward was a persistent propagandist of bogus allegations of election tampering in Arizona.
Along with Ward, the following people were accused of being “fake electors”: state legislators Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman; Kelli Ward’s husband, Michael Ward; Tyler Bowyer, the Republican National Committee’s Arizona committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, an organization aligned with Trump; Greg Safsten, the former executive director of the Arizona GOP; Jim Lamon, a former candidate for the U.S. Senate; Robert Montgomery, the former head of the Cochise County GOP; and Republican Party activists Samuel Moorhead, Nancy Cottle, and Loraine Pellegrino.
One of the organizers of the purported plot, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, appears to be described in another section of the indictment as an unindicted coconspirator. In Georgia last year, Chesebro entered a guilty plea to conspiracy charges leveled against him, Trump, and seventeen other state residents. He is also thought to be among the anonymous co-conspirators who special counsel Jack Smith listed in his indictment of Trump for federal election interference last year.
The probe was headed by Democrat Kris Mayes, the attorney general of Arizona. In November 2022, she emerged victorious in her bid to become the state’s chief prosecutor, unseating Republican Mark Brnovich, a former Trump ally who was met with disdain for failing to provide evidence to support his allegations of electoral malpractice in the state.
In a video announcing the allegations, Mayes stated, “We spent the last 13 months conducting a comprehensive and professional investigation into the fake electors scheme in our state.” I recognize that today didn’t arrive quickly enough for some of you. Furthermore, I am aware that people would condemn me for doing this research at all. But I will not allow American democracy to be compromised, as I have said previously and will reiterate here today.
The accusations from Arizona are just one more instance of how Trump’s attempts to rig the 2020 election are turning into legal actions as he runs for office again in 2024.
Arizona was one of seven states on which so-called “alternate electors” signed documents erroneously declaring that Trump had won. “Alternate electors” have already been charged by prosecutors in Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan.
As he oversaw the congressional electoral vote count on January 6, Chesebro and other others, including Eastman, contended in the months following the 2020 election that then-Vice President Mike Pence might declare Trump the victor by virtue of the existence of the alternate electors.
In a memo, Eastman stated that there are no electors in the seven states that can be considered legitimately appointed due to the current challenges in those states. .. As of right now, 232 votes support Trump and 222 support Biden. President Trump is then proclaimed re-elected by Pence.
Arizona was lost by less than 11,000 votes for Trump. Trump attempted to exert pressure on Maricopa County leaders and other Arizona Republicans, including as then-state House Speaker Rusty Bowers and then-Gov. Doug Ducey, as the Republican electors were sending bogus certificates to Washington.
As the governor verified the results of the state’s election, Trump called Ducey directly. Ducey hung up the phone.
Mayes’ tenure as Arizona’s attorney general has been characterized by further election-related cases that have arisen from Trump’s fabricated allegations of electoral fraud in 2020 and beyond.
Mayes filed charges against two municipal officials last November for postponing the Cochise County midterm election results in 2022’s certification. After making unfounded charges against the election’s integrity for several months, the officials decided not to certify the county’s election results by the mandated deadline. The county did not certify the results of the election until a court compelled it to.
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