Charges against Trump’s 2020 ‘fake electors’ are expected to deter a repeat this year
An Arizona grand jury’s indictment of 18 people who either posed as or helped organize a slate of electors falsely claiming that former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020 could help shape the landscape of challenges to the 2024 election.
The indictment issued Wednesday is part of a campaign to deter a repeat of 2020, when Trump and his Republican allies falsely claimed he won swing states, filed dozens of lawsuits unsuccessfully challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and tried to get Congress to let Trump stay in power. That campaign culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The penalties piling up for that push include lawyers who helped Trump being censured, sanctioned and recommended for disbarment. Added to that are multimillion-dollar libel penalties and now criminal charges in four states for spreading lies about the 2020 election. That effort included submitting fake electors contending that Trump had actually won the states and that Congress should recognize them rather than the electors won by Biden.
“People are going to have to think twice about doing things to undermine the election,” said David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and coauthor of “The Big Truth,” about the danger of 2020 election deniers. “The deterrent effect is real.”
Trump himself faces federal charges for his effort to overturn the election as well as a separate indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia. On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard arguments over Trump’s contention that he should be immune from prosecution for his acts while serving as president. Though justices seemed poised to reject that contention, several signaled reservations over the federal charges that could delay the case until after the November election.
Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official who also worked in the Biden White House, noted the differing pace of consequences for Trump and for those whom he called the former president’s “lieutenants” in the challenges to the 2020 election results.
“One of the things that fosters deterrence most is swiftness and severity,” Levitt said. “Though the wheels of justice are turning slow, they are turning, and we are seeing consequences for the lieutenants in this conspiracy.”
Some of the broadest consequences may have come in the indictments of so-called fake electors in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, all states with Democratic attorneys general. Several people targeted in the wide-ranging Georgia indictment also were charged relating to a fake elector scheme.
The 18 people indicted in Arizona include Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who was recently appointed the Republican National Committee’s head of “Election Integrity.” Trump was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
“This is not some kind of a game. This is not some sort of fantasy football league,” Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State, said in an interview Thursday. “This is real life, and bad acts have real potential bad consequences.”