Giuliani, Meadows indicted on Arizona ‘fake elector’ charges

An Arizona grand jury handed up felony charges against Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and other prominent Trump allies for allegedly attempting to prevent the lawful transfer of power from then-President Trump to Joe Biden.

Seven Trump aides were charged alongside 11 pro-Trump Arizona Republicans who signed documents purporting to be the state’s valid electors in 2020.

The former president himself is not charged but is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Prosecutors accuse the 18 defendants of devising a scheme to raise false claims of election fraud to pressure Arizona election officials to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in the state.

The indictment describes lawsuits filed, alleged messages to county and state officials and the signing of the “fake elector” documents in December 2020.

Each of the 11 pro-Trump electors faces nine charges, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery counts.

“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads.

“Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” it continued, referring to Trump. “This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

Only the 11 alternate electors are identified by name, but descriptions contained within the charging documents make clear the other defendants include Giuliani, the former New York City mayor turned Trump attorney; Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff; Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser; and John Eastman, an attorney involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’s (D) office said their names will be made public after they have been served.

The 2020 presidential race in Arizona was one of the nation’s tightest, with Biden prevailing against Trump by just more than 10,000 votes. 

Arizona was one of seven battleground states where slates of “alternate electors” convened and claimed without basis that they were “duly elected” electors. The hope was that then-Vice President Mike Pence would recognize those Trump-supporting electors instead of the true electoral votes cast for Biden.

Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R ) implicated Giuliani in his 2022 testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee. Bowers said that, despite repeatedly pushing the New York mayor-turned-Trump-surrogate for proof to back up his 2020 election fraud claims, Giuliani failed to produce any.

“My recollection, [Giuliani] said, ‘We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence,’” Bowers testified.

The so-called ‘fake electors’ indicted are Kelli Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, Gregory Safsten and Michael Ward.

Pro-Trump electors in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia have also faced charges for attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

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