Arizona fake electors indicted: Kris Mayes unveils grand jury charges
By: The Arizona Republic
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A grand jury has charged 11 Arizona Republicans and seven top aides to Donald Trump in a scheme to keep Trump in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020, though voters in the Grand Canyon State narrowly favored Joe Biden.
Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, announced on Wednesday the grand jury had issued the nine-count indictment. It alleges the slate of Republicans sometimes known as fake electors and the Trump aides engaged in a conspiracy aimed at "preventing the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted."
The names of the seven Trump allies are redacted from the indictment, meaning they have not yet been served notice of the charges against them.
Though their names are redacted, as are the specific charges against them, details in the indictment make clear that the architects of Trump's national campaign to steal the election are also facing charges in Arizona. Those individuals appear to include Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyers Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, and Trump advisers Boris Epshteyn and Michael Roman.
Trump himself is, according to the document, "unindicted coconspirator 1."
The Arizonans now facing charges include powerful and influential GOP figures: a former Republican Party of Arizona chairman; a Republican national committeeman and executive at Turning Point USA and its political arm; and two sitting state senators — one of whom retains immense political power at the Arizona Capitol.
The grand jury's decision could levy criminal consequences for an unprecedented plot to subvert the will of Arizona voters, one that has ruptured faith in elections and fueled election conspiracies that have taken root in GOP politics in the state. It comes as Mayes has promised to aggressively combat election conspiracies, offering a sharp contrast to her predecessor.
Mayes reflected the gravity of the case in a five-minute video statement released Wednesday.
"Whatever their reasoning was, the plot to violate the law must be answered for, and I was elected to uphold the law of this state," Mayes said. "The scheme, had it succeeded, would have deprived Arizona's voters of their right to have their votes counted for their chosen president. It effectively would have made their right to vote meaningless."
The grand jury, a panel of Arizonans who met in secret, in recent weeks heard evidence presented by Mayes' prosecutors and ultimately decided there was enough to substantiate criminal charges.
The 11 electors are each charged with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices, and six counts of forgery.
The fake electors in Arizona are:
- Tyler Bowyer, an executive with Turning Point USA and a committeeman for the Republican National Committee
- Nancy Cottle, who chaired the Arizona Trump electors
- State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek
- State Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale
- Jim Lamon, former U.S. Senate candidate
- Robert Montgomery, former chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee
- Samuel Moorhead, a former leader of the Gila County Republican Party
- Loraine Pellegrino, the secretary of the Arizona Trump electors
- Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party
- Kelli Ward, former chair of the Arizona Republican Party
- Michael Ward, her husband and a GOP activist
Many of the electors or their attorneys could not be reached by The Arizona Republic late Wednesday to comment on the indictment.
Hoffman revived his previous statements claiming Mayes' investigation "weaponized the once respected" office.
"Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this naked political persecution by the judicial process," Hoffman said in the statement. The statement directs reporters to contact Dhillon Law Group, the namesake firm of Harmeet Dhillon that has represented Trump and his aides in other states, for more information.
Lamon's lawyer, Dennis Wilenchik, said his client will be acquitted — and they look forward to suing Mayes' office for damages over the accusations.
"It's a politically motivated prosecution," Wilenchik said. "I can see no crime in any of it."
Wilenchik also represents one of two Republican Cochise County supervisors who are facing criminal charges brought by Mayes office in another case. He has said that case, too, was motivated by political partisanship.
The electors who claimed Trump won
Mayes has been under immense political pressure to bring a case. Similar slates of electors in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada have already been charged for their role in the sweeping effort to keep Trump in power.
And a federal grand jury last year brought charges against Trump himself, alleging the former president conspired with others to disenfranchise voters and subvert Biden's win. Trump is also facing charges in the Georgia case, which alleges he led a criminal enterprise and relies on a state law normally reserved for prosecuting mobsters.
Several of the Arizona electors have previously claimed they were merely offering Congress a backup plan, though nothing in the documents they sent to Congress and the National Archives backs up that assertion. Similar groups of electors in other states did include conditional language, but none was included in Arizona.
Biden carried Arizona in November 2020 by a 10,457 vote margin with nearly 3.4 million votes cast. It was Biden's smallest margin of victory in any state, and only the second time in 70 years that a Democrat won the state.
At the time, Trump had spent months furthering doubt about the election result. In the days after his loss, he and his aides unleashed a pressure campaign on GOP leaders in Arizona and other states.
They found some support in Arizona, while others rebuffed the president's unfounded claims. That split in loyalties continues to divide the state's Republican Party and grassroots support, threatening the party's ability to win elections in the swing state.
Arizona actually had two different groups of illegitimate GOP electors. The indictment made public on Wednesday names the slate that included more prominent Republican figures, and some of whose involvement has already been well established by the Congressional committee investigating the violent break-in at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those 11 GOP electors met at the Arizona Republican headquarters in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, posting videos on social media of themselves casting their votes for Trump. They signed paperwork to submit to Congress claiming they were "duly elected and qualified" electors.
But that was a lie.
The same day, electors for Biden met to cast their votes in the Electoral College confirming the Democrat's win. They met at an undisclosed location, citing security concerns tied to Trump's refusal to accept his loss.
It was a procedural process that, prior to 2020, was a formality often overlooked by most Americans.
Investigation begins under a new attorney general in 2023
Mayes confirmed more than one year ago, in March 2023, that her office would investigate Arizona's electors who falsely claimed to be legitimate. A former Republican who left the party in 2019 citing the growth of Trumpism and what she saw as shrinking room for moderates in the party, Mayes had been in office for two months. She won her election in November 2022 by 280 votes — one of the narrowest margins in state history.
That race and others on the ballot two years ago put to the test Arizonans' appetite for electing those who deny legitimate election results.
Mayes pledged to protect election workers and defend elections, where her Republican predecessor Mark Brnovich had tried to straddle election denialism. She promised a purposeful shift in focus within the office, which amounts to the state's largest law firm, and condemned Brnovich for sitting on a report for over a year that said his office "did not uncover any criminality or fraud."
Her investigation at first focused on the 11 electors, but a trickle of information that has leaked out from the grand jury proceedings over the past several weeks has suggested Mayes cast a wider net.
Two Arizona congressmen who were among the loudest voices in support of Trump's "Stop the Steal" campaign, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, received subpoenas.
Mayes' office turned to Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro for information. Chesebro, who also aided prosecutors in Georgia (after he was indicted) and Nevada, wrote memorandums outlining the strategy to send alternate electors to Congress.
Sending the documents from Trump electors "can prevent Biden from amassing 270 electoral votes on January 6, and force the Members of Congress, the media, and the American people to focus on the substantive evidence of illegal election and counting activities in the six contested States," one memo from Dec. 6, 2020, reads. The memo suggests states that undertook the plan should also spread "messaging that presents this as a routine measure."
In fact, the effort was anything but routine — it was criminal, the grand jury said.
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Once again, it's Team America vs. MAGA. Now it's Arizona's turn to clean up the trash.
the pending DC criminal case of jack smith's against trump is going to shake a lot of rotten maga fruit from the trees.
The only way it ever gets off the ground is if Trump is defeated in Nov.
I think an incredible amount of media damage will happen to complicit individuals in the run up to 11/5.
the number of mentally defective trump supporters willing to risk their freedom for him is hilarious...
... and then going to jail for him makes it even funnier.
I guess those that live by threats and intimidation fear it the most. they must truly believe that rolling over on their traitor demigod would be a fate worse than death...
very, very, bad people
looks like conservative policy takes precedence over democracy for christo-fascists...
I wonder if Trump is going to pay their legal fees.
Hey, The check is in the mail
and he told Stormy something about not 'showing up' or something like that...
she thought mushrooms that small always came in those little cans at the supermarket...
Micro dose
legal in the city and county of denver...
Violation Lyrics
Empty bottles, empty head
The committee says, Shape up
Or they'll fix me quick enough
(We are with you everywhere)
(We protect you from yourself)
(We are watchin')
I wanna rock and roll (No, that's a violation)
I wanna lose control (No, that's a violation)
I wanna love someone (No, that's a violation)
I'm gonna have some fun (You better not try it)
Lousy jobs, down in holes
Join the union, learn to bowl
Lovely houses of cement
The committee pays the rent
(We are with you еverywhere)
(Wе protect you from yourself)
(We are watchin')
I wanna rock and roll (No, that's a violation)
I wanna lose control (No, that's a violation)
I wanna love someone (No, that's a violation)
I wanna have some fun (You better not try it)
We appreciate your trust
There's a problem we're aware
That many of your children share
But we've developed new techniques
The process takes about two weeks
It's based upon electroshock
A daily dose of microwatts
And when we're through
With what we do
We'll ship the beggar back to you
And then he'll be as good as new
Doctor says I'm almost fine
And they'll let me out in time
I'm a very stubborn case
And my tape's not quite erased
(We are with you everywhere)
(We protect you from yourself)
(We are watchin')
I wanna rock and roll (No, that's a violation)
I wanna lose control (No, that's a violation)
I wanna love someone (No, that's a violation)
I wanna have some fun (You better not try it)
I wanna rock and roll (No, that's a violation)
I wanna lose control (No, that's a violation)
I wanna love someone (No, that's a violation)
I wanna have some fun (You better not try it)
No
No
No
No
No
[✘]
They are on a losing streak, Keep it going MAGA.
Rudy and Meadows might be part of the unnamed dumbasses, just perfect.
Hmmm, why?
The names of the seven Trump allies are redacted from the indictment, meaning they have not yet been served notice of the charges against them.
That is the reason. I was adding my comment below and did not see your comment until after I posted mine.
The Arizona Attorney General said it is because those whose names are redacted have not yet been served with the indictment.
it's all part of the vast left wing conspiracy they call due process and the rule of law on the way to equal justice. /s
Right. We can't have any of that! Not in America.
it's contrary to maga ideology now...
throwing the Q nuts a bone?
a bigger POS our political system has not seen
the GOP has now reduced itself to a sewage settling pond...
I forecast a severe shortage of US marshals to protect maga scum if trump by some fluke wins in november ...
... despite a massive pay increase.
After daily interactions with ones declaring that both candidates are so terrible, neither should receive our votes, as if both candidates are somehow equal in depravity, one just has to laugh, as the non stop gaff, the short necked giraffe about to have a calf fiend fit for quite the outstanding piece OH shit who can't seem to meet a crime he doesn't wish to, or hasn't alredy done did commit, one has to take a moment, like that giraffe, and take a second, to hocker up and spit. Cause beyond what most could ever consider, is a bigger POSHITTER! Yet they'll be here, telling US All about a witchunt cast to ensnarle the innosent from HELL non sinner, cause Biden is the REAL loser, and TRUMP, is the real WINNER,
well loser loser chicken dinner
with not skin thinner paint, it on , and deny away, cause your cult, has chores numbered, and soon enuff, Trump will be sawing lumbered with all that wood not work, to excuse this jerk, off to work i must go, butt know Trump is an embarrassment you defenders own, foer all of History to judge, and against you, patriotic citizens will forever hold a GRUDGE
in the internet era, in a sense all opinions and statements are "equal", because they can be made . In the real world it is absurd to argue that Biden is as dishonest and depraved as Trump (frankly , very few human beings are). But in the online world bullshit and lies are currency.
and too many are feeling rich, attempting to share their pseudo wealth
you can bet your ass that almost every past trump dick sucker claiming both candidates suck now will drop to their knees on 11/5 and flip the R lever.
And yet, convicted felons and Russian trolls are ineligible to vote. Which is, I suspect, the case regarding the usual suspects...
they definitely enjoy sucking one, more than the other
Why isn't trump's faithful and loving wife by his side during this trial?
Because he's fucking guilty.
Because she has more enjoyable opportunities?
I guess that right wing, "stand by your man" crap is just more bullshit. Got it.
[✘]
she doesn't care what happens and hasn't slept with him in 8+ years. nobody probably wants to see him in a box more than her.
as long as it isn't herrs
$130K for 2 minutes isn't a bad rate.
now that it has been established...
He sells all sorts of worthless stuff.
Why not a tiny mushroom?
Word is he can use the money.
she's shopping for a new billionaire now, one that can still get it up...