PHOENIX (AP) — Former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party Kelli Ward and at least 11 other people will be charged in a Phoenix courtroom with conspiracy, forgery and fraud stemming from their roles in attempting to overturn the case. Donald Trump‘s 2020 election loss in Arizona Joe Biden.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will also be arraigned on Tuesday, although it is unclear whether he will ask for a delay. Arizona authorities tried unsuccessfully for several weeks to notify Giuliani of the charges against him. Giuliani was finally served on Friday evening as he walked to a car after his 80th birthday.
Authorities in Arizona last month unveiled felony charges against Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump, a Republican, had won Arizona. The suspects include five lawyers with ties to the former president and two former Trump aides. Biden, a Democrat, won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
The indictment alleges that Ward, a former state senator who led Arizona’s Republican Party from 2019 to early 2023, organized the fake voters and urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to turn them into the real ones voters of the state. It says Ward failed to rescind her vote as a fake voter, even though no legal challenges changed the outcome of Arizona’s presidential race.
Last week, attorney John Eastman, who devised a strategy to convince Congress not to certify the election, became the first defendant in the case to be indicted and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case, but was named an unindicted co-conspirator.
Arizona is the fourth state where allies of the former president have been accused of using false or unproven claims of voter fraud in connection with the election.
The 11 people claiming to be Arizona’s Republican electors gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate stating they were “duly chosen and qualified” electors and claiming Trump carried the state . A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Republican Party of Arizona at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Of the eight lawsuits unsuccessfully challenging Biden’s win in the state, one was filed by Arizona’s 11 fake electors, who asked a federal judge to decertify the results and block the state from sending its results to the Electoral College to send. In dismissing the case, the judge concluded that the Republicans had “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.” Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the eleven participated in the signing of the certificate.
Those scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday are Ward; Tyler Bowyer, a director of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA; state Senator Anthony Kern; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Republican Party of Arizona; Robert Montgomery, a former chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee; Samuel Moorhead, a member of the Republican precinct committee in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who served as first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women in 2020; Loraine Pellegrino, former chairwoman of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician married to Ward; attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb; and Michael Roman, who served as Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.
Indictments are scheduled for June 6 against Senator Jake Hoffman; on June 7 for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows; and on June 18 for Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn and for James Lamon, another Republican who claimed Trump carried the state.
