Giuliani Among 18 Trump Allies Indicted in Arizona for 2020 Election Scheme

Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and John Eastman were among 18 co-defendants indicted by an Arizona grand jury Wednesday on charges stemming from their attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results by nominating fake electors.

The indictment capped off a year-long investigation spearheaded by Arizona Attorney General Kristin Mayes (D). Wednesday’s filing lists 11 named defendants and seven redacted defendants who are charged with six counts of forgery, one count of conspiracy, one count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, and one count of fraudulent schemes and practices.

The filing redacted the names of defendants who live outside of Arizona who had not been served with the charges, but The Washington Post reported the names of the redacted parties given the paragraph description of each defendant provided in the indictment. The other indicted members the publication identified include former Trump attorney attorney Jenna Ellis, recent-RNC appointee Christina Bobb, Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, and campaign aide Mike Roman.

Additional named defendants include former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward and her husband Michael Ward; Arizona state senators Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman; and Tyler Bowyer, an RNC committeeman and Chief Operating Officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the Pro-Trump conservative youth group Turning Point USA. Donald Trump himself is discussed in the indictment but not charged, instead being referred to as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”

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

Sources with knowledge of the investigation told Rolling Stone last year that investigators had been looking into Ward’s actions as a fake elector, including a fateful meeting in Dec. 2020 where she and 10 other Republicans signed documents claiming to be Arizona’s legitimate electors and casting their votes for Donald Trump, who lost the general election by 10,457 votes in the state.

“Defendants deceived the citizens of Arizona by falsely claiming that those votes were contingent only on a legal challenge that would change the outcome of the election,” the indictment reads. “In reality, Defendants intended that their false votes for Trump-Pence would encourage Pence to reject the Biden-Harris votes on January 6, 2021, regardless of the outcome of the legal challenge.”

Arizona is the fourth state to criminally charge fake electors, with similar indictments filed in Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia, the latter of which includes Trump as a co-defendant.

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