An Arizona grand jury indicted eighteen people on Wednesday the ongoing investigation to an alleged attempted use alternate voters after the 2020 presidential election as part of a broader alleged conspiracy to falsely declare then-President Donald Trump the winner, the state’s attorney general announced.
The alleged fake voters and defendants named in the indictment were Kelli Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, Gregory Safsten and Michael Ward.
Ward was chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, and Hoffman and Kern are both Arizona state senators. Hoffman had in recent weeks taken a position with the Republican National Committee.
According to the indictment, the defendants are accused of pressuring election officials to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. After the Secretary of State, the Board of Supervisors, and GOP Governor Doug Ducey declared that Joe Biden had won the Arizona election against Trump, the defendants, who were the Republican presidential electors for Arizona, voted for Trump and then- Vice President Mike Pence. . They, the complaint says, “falsely claimed to be the duly elected and qualified electors for the President and Vice President of the United States of the State of Arizona.”
Prosecutors accuse the defendants of misleading Arizonans “by falsely claiming that those votes were conditional solely on a legal challenge that would change the outcome of the election.”
However, the indictment states that the defendants actually intended to use their fake votes to “encourage (Vice President) Pence to reject the Biden-Harris votes on January 6, 2021, regardless of the outcome of the legal challenge. ” They reportedly hoped that when six other states with fake Republican electors submitted their uncertified votes for Trump and Pence, Pence would either declare Trump the winner, “postpone the proceedings and let individual state legislatures determine their electors, or Congress would have the alleged uncertainty resolved. on the validity of the election results in Arizona and six other states” in favor of Trump.
“The scheme failed,” prosecutors said in the indictment, when Pence accepted all certified Biden-Harris votes on January 6, 2021.
Hoffman told the Arizona Republic in a statement that he is “innocent of any crime” and “I look forward to the day when I am vindicated by the judiciary for this naked political persecution.”
An attorney for Lamon also told the Arizona Republic that the indictment is “a politically motivated prosecution.”
The names of additional defendants were removed from court documents because they had not yet been served, said Attorney General Kris Mayes, an Arizona Democrat. However, some could be identified from their descriptions in court documents.
The indictment described Trump as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.” Trump has repeatedly called such prosecutions “witch hunts.”
“An attorney for Unindicted Coconspirator 1, often identified as ‘the Mayor,’” appears to be Rudy Giuliani. Jenna Ellis, another attorney who joined Giuliani in helping spread baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, also appears to be detailed in the documents.
Another unidentified defendant is named Trump’s chief of staff in 2020, which would have been Mark Meadows. Another unknown defendant was the Trump campaign’s director of election day operations, a title that belonged to Mike Roman.
Attorney George Terwilliger, who represents Meadows, told The Associated Press that while he had not seen the indictment, naming Meadows “would be a blatantly political and politicized accusation and will be challenged and defeated.”
Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, told the AP that the indictment “demonstrates the continued weaponization of our justice system.”
The Republican Party of Arizona called the charges a “blatant and unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power” and said it “condemns these actions in the strongest terms.”
The charges filed include fraud, forgery and conspiracy, which are class 2, 4 and 5 felonies, Mayes said.
Arizona is one of seven states Trump lost in 2020 where the former president’s allies allegedly tried to create a fraudulent voter registry.
Because they were “unwilling to accept” that Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, the defendants “schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency” by advancing false claims of election fraud and organizing bogus voter votes, the lawsuit said. indictment.
The alleged fraud was committed to prevent “the lawful transfer of the Presidency of the United States,” to “keep Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and to disenfranchise Arizona voters and cast their votes count,” court documents said.
The charges in Arizona came as Trump and 18 of his associates face charges of racketeering, election fraud and other charges in Fulton County, Georgia, over an alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, including the alternate electoral system. That complaint alleged that some defendants have asked lawmakers to appoint new electors in states other than Georgia, including Arizona.
In August last year the former president was indicted by a federal grand jury over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That indictment, which stems from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s actions after the 2020 election, quoted a memo outlining this a strategy for Trump supporters to serve as fake voters.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing in both cases.
—Kathryn Watson, Scott MacFarlane and Olivia Rinaldi contributed reporting.
