An Arizona Superior Court grand jury indicted Trump’s 2020 electors and those who colluded in the elector scheme on nine felony charges related to conspiracy, fraud, and forgery on Tuesday.
The 11 electors indicted were Kelli Ward, former AZGOP Chair, and her husband, Michael Ward; Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point USA COO; Nancy Cottle, Arizona Trump electors chair; State Senators Jake Hoffman (in 2020, state representative-elect) and Anthony Kern; Jim Lamon, former 2022 Senate candidate; Robert Montgomery, former Cochise County Republican Committee leader; Samuel Moorhead, former Gila County Republican Party leader; Lorraine Pellegrino, former Arizona Trump electors secretary, Arizona Federation of Republican Women leader, and Republican National Committee delegate; and Gregory Safsten, former AZGOP executive director and Congressman Andy Biggs’ deputy chief of staff.
Seven others were also indicted on felony charges, but their names were redacted. Based on the descriptions of the seven, the individuals named were Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Mike Roman.
The indictment also listed five unindicted, unnamed coconspirators: one identifiable as former President Donald Trump, along with two former members of the Arizona legislature, a Trump campaign attorney, and another Trump campaign attorney from Arizona.
Beyond claiming to be the duly elected and qualified electors for the 2020 election and casting their votes for Trump, some of the 11 electors were identified for additional actions they took in the voting scheme.
Ward was identified as the organizer of the Trump elector votes and one of the individuals who pressured Vice President Mike Pence to accept their votes. Hoffman wrote a letter to Pence urging the vice president to delay acceptance of Arizona’s Democrat elector votes. Kern pressured Arizona officials and Pence to accept the Republican electors’ votes. Safsten assisted Ward in organizing the elector votes.
The indictment accused the 11 electors of raising false claims of widespread election fraud immediately after the 2020 presidential election in order to pressure election officials to change the final vote outcome.
The indictment further accused the 11 of falsely claiming to Arizona citizens that their elector votes for former President Trump were legal and contingent only on a legal challenge that would alter the 2020 election outcome. The indictment then alleged that the 11 truly hoped their elector votes would convince former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the votes for now-President Joe Biden.
“[D]efendants wanted Pence to either declare [Trump] the winner of the election, delay the proceeding and have individual state legislatures determine their electors, or have Congress resolve any claimed uncertainty about the validity of election results in Arizona and six other states in [Trump’s’] favor,” read the indictment.
The AZGOP issued a statement deriding the indictments as a politically motivated abuse of legal authority, and as election interference regarding the upcoming 2024 election.
“Today’s indictments by Attorney General Kris Mayes represent a blatant and unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power, aimed solely at distracting the public from the critical policy debates our country should be focusing on as we approach the 2024 election,” stated the AZGOP.
Our official statement regarding AG Kris Mayes' politically motivated indictments and blatant abuse of legal authority aimed to disrupt, distract, and interfere in the 2024 election. pic.twitter.com/9WeC0wtQN0
— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) April 25, 2024
Conversely, Mayes said in a video announcement of the indictment that the electors had engaged in election interference in 2020 by allegedly scheming to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency.
“I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” said Mayes. “We are 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.”
Germany, 1939.
This is getting so out of hand. Has anyone noticed that its just Republicans being indicted? Forget that Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrahams did the exact same thing. The AZ AG is playing right from the Democrat play book. Make no mistake, this is all politically motivated and just the preview of things to come if Uncle Joe is re-elected.
In my mind, Mayes is not the legitimate AG. With only 280 votes between Hamadeh and Mayes, I don’t understand why none of the 9000 provisional ballots weren’t counted. Obviously, not all were registered but I’ll bet at least a couple thousand were required in error.
wellthe witch hunt continues as they want to try and deny the people of having a chice except for brandon who is the puppet of the deminazi party. Guess saving ‘democracy’ is just a buzz word to try and give the gullible travelers a sense of security when the party is the one doing what they accuse trump of.
Hobbs and Mayes are the worst thing ever to happen to Arizona. I hope we can recall these harridans by the end of the year.
I see Mayes is exploiting her 200 hundred ballot “mandate”.
Will she be indicting the people who counted over 200,000 votes that didn’t have the legally required chain of custody?
How about the guy who snuck in late night and deleted the supoened election computer logs?
This is an expansion of the DOJ’s malicious prosecution anyone related to Trump. How much do you want to bet Kris Mayes made the same trip Fani Willis did to the Whitehouse to conspire in this prosecution. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately added Trump to the charges. We will see the same type of kangaroo court be convened with a Biden donor judge, liberal prosecutor gag orders on the defense and so on. Their goal, to come up with some legally twisted way to keep Trump off the ballot and persecute anyone who supports him.
This is a clear demonstration the present elected executives of this state are conspiring to use the full force of the government they control to stop their political opponents. If they are this embolden, they must be certain they will win next election. “Give me the man and I will give you the case against him” said Stalinist Lavrentiy Beria.
I would love to be selected for this jury and give Mayes a royal face slap by either convincing the jury for a not guilty verdict or by just giving the defense a hung jury.
“I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” said Mayes.
Hey, Mayes, get a clue. We have a form of government called a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. We also allow apparent losers to challenge the results of an election. Remember Al Gore and hanging chads? I don’t remember Bush’s DOJ or any state AG going after Gore or any of his associates. And another thing, are you going to insist on slapping a Soviet style gag order on the defendants?
If Mayes has so much free time on her hands why doesn’t she go after Biden or Clinton for all the trashy they have done. Biden never has 80,000 votes more/less 80,000,000. Why doesn’t Mayes go after the Democrats who have committed voter fraud?
As sure as the sun rises in Arizona, Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes flex their George Soros muscles and bring criminal indictments against conservative Arizonans. Of course, it’s an election year, all the better to taint republicans. The Arizona Republic, the designated far left propaganda newspaper, will have a field day with this. On November 6th, the day after the election, the ladies on the high floors on Washington Street will be polishing their nails for a job well done and will start to prosecute republicans who dared to speak up in the 2024 elections.
We can’t forget Adrian Fontes, the Maricopa Recorder – he is in on the game plan and made a lot of this mess possible,
Fontes is nothing but a giant POS!!’
I hope not!
We are officially a Banana republic. 2020 was stolen, attempts will be made to steal 2024, and the real insurrectionists are trying to jail their opponents. Lying, cheating, and stealing – the new American Uniparty.
I heard that a ham sandwich can be indicted. Doesn’t mean a thing when only one side of a story is allowed to be told. Trouble is will an honest jury be found?
Yes, there is hope. George Allen Kelly was exonerated for a sham trial.