Liam Conner
At least 12 allies of former President Donald Trump are being charged in Phoenix on charges including conspiracy, fraud and forgery related to a alleged scheme to place forward fake voters in 2020 elections who supported Trump despite President Biden winning the state.
Rudy Giuliani is among the defendants on the docket after being served on Friday night as he left his 80th birthday partyand attended the hearing virtually. Other defendants include former Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, former Turning Point USA Youth Director Tyler Bowyer , and Arizona Republican state election officials.
Trump, who is currently being tried in an unrelated case in New York criminal court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, is not among the defendants, but is repeatedly referred to in the indictment as an “unindicted co-conspirator.” He pleaded not guilty in the New York case.
The Arizona indictment alleges that the defendants “knowingly falsified, concealed or covered up by a material fact or any trick, scheme or device or made or used any false writing or document knowing that such writing or document contained any false, fictitious or fraudulent, namely: two voting certificates for President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael Pence, presented by Arizona Republican voters to the Arizona Secretary of State.
Ross D.Franklin/AP
The accusations center on the presentation of a document to Congress declaring – falsely – that Trump had won the state. Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes. Ward is accused of organizing the effort, the indictment alleges, and wanted then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept the misrepresentation as valid.
According to the indictment, electors met in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, and signed the certificate claiming to be the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States from the State of Arizona.” The indictment alleges they also posted a video that day on social media saying, “We are the voters who represent the legal voters of Arizona!
In announcing the charges, Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said “the scheme, had it been successful, would have deprived Arizona voters of the right to have their votes counted for their chosen president.”
Former Trump lawyer John Eastmanwho was accused of masterminding the scheme to try to persuade Congress not to accept the election results, pleaded not guilty last Friday to charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery.
Arizona is one of seven states Trump lost in 2020, where his allies are accused of schemes to appoint alternative electors for the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, when lawmakers met to count the College votes Electoral.
Trump allies have also been accused of similar alleged fake election schemes in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
In addition to the New York criminal charges, Trump has been accused of dozens of other crimes in three other jurisdictions, including federal charges related to the January 6, 2021, riot and charges in Fulton County, Georgia, related to alleged election interference there. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing. In addition to Trump, Giuliani, Meadows, Ellis, Eastman and Michael Roman, all charged in Arizona, are among 19 defendants in Georgia.
