Arizona Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes announced on Wednesday that a grand jury convened by her office had indicted 11 state Republicans and seven aides to former President Donald Trump in connection with an alleged attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election results.
Charges contained in the 58-page indictment consist of conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
Defendants include former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern and state Republican National Committee member Tyler Bowyer. They are all listed as those who sought to be alternative Republican electors in the 2020 election.
The Arizona Republic reported that the names of defendants redacted from the document were believed to be “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 listed as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”
The indictment reads, in reference to Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow win in the 2020 election, “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.”
“After the general election on November 3, 2020, Defendants raised false claims of widespread election fraud in Arizona to pressure election officials to change the outcome of a democratic election,” it says.
Biden carried Arizona by just 10,457 votes, his narrowest win in the nation. Trump had won the Grand Canyon State in 2016 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by approximately 91,200 votes.
Regarding the alternate electors, the indictment alleges that they sought to deceive Arizonans by falsely claiming their “votes were contingent only on a legal challenge that would change the outcome of the election.”
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In reality, according to prosecutors, they wanted Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate during the Electoral College vote count on Jan. 6, 2021, to either declare that Trump won Arizona or send the issue of certification back to state Legislature for further review.
Then-Gov. Doug Ducey and then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs — a Republican and a Democrat, respectively — certified Biden the winner in December 2020.
In a video statement posted on Wednesday, Mayes said regarding the criminal cases, “I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough, and I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all.”
“But as I have stated before and will say here again today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined. It’s too important,” she said.
“We’re here because justice demands an answer to the efforts that the defendants and other unindicted co-conspirators allegedly took to undermine the will of Arizona’s voters during the 2020 presidential election,” Mayes said.
She asserted that “Arizona’s election was free and fair.”
A state grand jury, made up of everyday, regular Arizonans, has handed down felony indictments in the ongoing investigation into the fake elector scheme in Arizona. pic.twitter.com/Nu8GcD4ZqJ
— AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes (@AZAGMayes) April 24, 2024
An April 2022 report released by then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, found that there were “problematic system-wide issues that relate to early ballot handling and verification” in Maricopa County, which includes the Phoenix metro area.
“Our review uncovered multiple violations of ballot transportation procedures,” the attorney general wrote. “Specially, our investigation confirmed that out of 1,895 Early Voting Ballot Transportation Statements, 381 forms or 20 percent were missing required information.
“In other words, it is possible that somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 ballots were transported without proper chain of custody.”
Brnovich also highlighted that Maricopa County had not been forthcoming in turning over all the materials related to the 2020 general election that the AG’s Election Integrity Office had sought despite multiple requests beginning in September 2021 after the Arizona Senate concluded its audit.
He said in a news release that month that the audit raised “some serious questions regarding the 2020 election.”
In February 2023, shortly after she took office, Mayes accused Brnovich of suppressing internal findings of his department that investigators did not find that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 election, CBS News reported.
“The ten thousand plus hours spent diligently investigating every conspiracy theory under the sun distracted this office from its core mission of protecting the people of Arizona from real crime and fraud,” Mayes said in a statement at the time.
Brnovich told Arizona CBS affiliate KPHO-TV in response, “We did our due diligence to run all complaints to ground. Where we were able to debunk rumors and conspiracies, we did so.”
He further highlighted that his office “identified problem areas that the state Legislature and Maricopa County officials should address,” the outlet reported.
Former Maricopa County prosecutor Rachel Alexander wrote Wednesday in The Arizona Sun Times that alternate electors were chosen in the 1960 presidential election between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon when there was a dispute over who won Hawaii.
Nixon was initially reported as the winner. Democrats chose a second slate of electors and challenged the election results. A recount was conducted, flipping the state to Kennedy. So JFK’s electors replaced Nixon’s in the Electoral College count — and no one was prosecuted for allegedly seeking to subvert an election.
Hoffman, one of the defendants, called Mayes’ indictment a “disgusting political persecution” in a Wednesday post on social media.
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 disgusting political persecution by the judicial process.
Kris Mayes & the Democrats’ naked corruption and weaponization of government… pic.twitter.com/PRWrqhtkyO
— Jake Hoffman (@JakeHoffmanAZ) April 25, 2024
“Before an investigation had even been conducted and with no evidence, Kris Mayes declared that she believed electors such as myself were guilty of a crime, that it was her job to get Biden re-elected, and that she would control the timing of the indictment,” the state senator said in a statement.
“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.
Giuliani seemed to be speaking about the charge in a social media post on Thursday.
“We have a lot of evidence of funny business surrounding the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election,” the former federal prosecutor and mayor of New York said on X. “I believe I could prove it was stolen if presented with the opportunity in court.”
We have a lot of evidence of funny business surrounding the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
I believe I could prove it was stolen if presented with the opportunity in court.
Even if you disagree with me or are skeptical, my position isn’t criminal.#AmericasMayorLive https://t.co/IZfMA0EPks
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) April 26, 2024
“Even if you disagree with me or are skeptical, my position isn’t criminal,” he added.
