Arizona Republican charged in election subversion case elected RNC committeeman

An Arizona state senator charged in the election subversion case in the state has been elected as its national committeeman for the Republican National Committee.

State Senator Jake Hoffman was indicted last week, facing allegations that he joined the effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the state. Mr Biden became the first Democrat to win Arizona on the presidential level since President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Mr Hoffman was indicted on Wednesday alongside 17 others – including former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former New York Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Mr Hoffman was elected to the national committee alongside former state Rep Liz Harris. She was expelled in connection to questioning Mr Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.

“I’m humbled and honored to have been elected as the next RNC National Committeeman for Arizona!” Mr Hoffman wrote on X on Saturday. “For the next 4 years I will work tirelessly to ensure that the RNC makes Arizona its #1 priority not only in 2024, but every year.”

Each state and territory sends a state chairman, a committeeman, and a committeewoman to the RNC, with each getting one vote at RNC meetings and for who will be the RNC chair.

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel recently left the post and she was replaced by election denier Michael Whatley, with former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump being made co-chair.

On 5 January 2021, Mr Hoffman was set to be sworn in as a state representative a few days later. He sent a letter the day before the insurrection at the US Capitol to then-Vice President Mike Pence pushing him to delay the counting of the electors from Arizona.

“It is in this late hour, with urgency, that I respectfully ask that you delay the certification of election results for Arizona during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, and seek clarification from the Arizona state legislature as to which slate of electors are proper and accurate,” Mr Hoffman wrote, according to CNN.

Mr Hoffman, who joined the state senate in January last year, was one of the 11 so-called “alternate” electors. Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement on Wednesday that they “deceived the citizens of Arizona”.

“The defendants intended that the false votes for Trump and Pence would encourage Vice President Pence to reject the certified Biden-Harris electors’ votes regardless of the result of any legal challenge,” she said.

Former state Rep Liz Harris, the new committeewoman from the state, was expelled from the state legislature in 2023 after she invited an election denier to testify on groundless allegations during a broadcast election hearing at the legislature.

Arizona Republican strategist Barrett Marson told NBC News that “These are not just your run-of-the-mill election deniers”.

“They are leaders in the whole experiment of election denialism,” he added. “I think it shows that both election denialism and a fealty to election denialism is now the state Republican Party in Arizona.”

Mr Hoffman said in a statement this week: “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.”

The Independent has reached out to the Arizona GOP for comment.