Rudy, Meadows among 18 indicted in Ariz. elex plot
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was among the 18 people indicted Wednesday by an Arizona grand jury for their roles in trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election with a “fake electors” scheme to help Donald Trump.
The group, which also included former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, was indicted on felony conspiracy charges, fraud and forgery. The indictment released names of 11 Republicans who falsely claimed in writing that Trump had defeated President Biden in the state and posed as electors in 2020. The document contained redacted names of seven others who were nonetheless identifiable by the descriptions of their positions and roles.
Giuliani “spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona and nationally shortly after Nov. 3, 2020,” the indictment stated. He also “presided over a ‘hearing’ in downtown Phoenix” in which he claimed falsely that Arizona’s election official had not tried to find out whether the election results were accurate, and he pressured the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Arizona legislators to change the election’s outcome, prosecutors said.
Trump was described as Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1, “a former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election.”
All of those in the indictment “schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” the 57-page document read. The goal was to prevent the lawful and peaceful transfer of power of the U.S. presidency, “keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted under the United States Constitution.”
The others mentioned, but not by name, in the document included Trump adviser John Eastman and Mike Roman, an operative in Trump’s 2020 campaign. Postelection strategist Ken Chesebro was also discernible from the list. Attorneys Boris Epshteyn, a Trump adviser, Christina Bobb, who currently works for the Republican National Committee, were indicted, too.
The group filed lawsuits, penned messages — some threatening — to county and state officials and signed the “fake elector” documents in December 2020, prosecutors said.
“I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a video released by her office. “It’s too important.”
Grand jury proceedings are by necessity secret, but one witness who testified told Politico on condition of anonymity that the jurors came from mixed political backgrounds and were energetic, proactive and engaged with lines of questioning.