An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted 18 people, including former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Guiliani, for their involvement in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
The indictment stems from an ongoing investigation into the plot to use fraudulent electors as part of a broader effort to declare Donald Trump the winner of Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes.
The 11 defendants named in the indictment are the 11 fraudulent Republican electors chosen for the scheme, including former GOP state chair Kelli Ward, Turning Point USA’s Tyler Bowyer, and Arizona state Senators Jacob Hoffman and Anthony Kern.
The indictment alleges that the defendants attempted to pressure state election officials to change the outcome of the 2020 election. The defendants are accused of falsely claiming “to be duly elected and qualified Electors” for the state of Arizona and voting for Donald Trump and Mike Pence after the state had certified Joe Biden as the winner.
The other seven defendants are not specifically named in the indictment, but based on the descriptions, they appear to include former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associate Christina Bobb, attorney John Eastman — the mastermind behind the fake electors scheme — the director of Trump’s Election Day operations Mike Roman, and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger said on Wednesday that while he had not yet seen the indictment, if his client was included, it was “a blatantly political and politicized accusation” that he would contest.
Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman blasted the indictment which he described as a continuation of the “weaponization of our justice system.”
The Arizona indictment is the latest in a series of indictments related to the fraudulent electors scheme.
Last summer, the Michigan Attorney General’s office charged the 16 fake Republican electors with multiple felonies, including conspiracy to commit election forgery. Charges were dropped against one of the 16 who reached a deal to cooperate with prosecutors.
A Nevada grand jury in December indicted six people for their role in the fake electors scheme in the state. All of them pleaded not guilty.
