Arizona grand jury indicts 11 Republicans who falsely declared Trump won the state in 2020
PHOENIX — Eleven Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely stating that Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election were charged Wednesday with conspiracy, fraud and forgery, marking the fourth state to file charges against “fake voters’.
The eleven people nominated as Republican electors in Arizona gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate stating they were “duly chosen and qualified” electors and claiming Trump had carried the state. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Seven others were charged, but their names were redacted from the documents released by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. Her office said the names will be released after charges against them are filed.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged his victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump the winner. Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, they participated in the signing of the certificate.
The charges in Arizona come after a series of charges against fake voters in Nevada, Michigan and Georgia.
The eleven people nominated as Republican electors in Arizona gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate stating that they were “duly chosen and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump had won the state in the election of 2020. 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.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in Arizona, one was filed by the eleven Republicans, who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump the winner in the state.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to decertify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending those results to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to file their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the eleven Republicans participated in the signing of the certificates.
The charges in Arizona come after a series of charges against fake voters in other states. In December, a grand jury in Nevada indicted six Republicans on felony charges of offering to file and pronounce a forged instrument in connection with forged election certifications. They have pleaded not guilty.
Michigan’s attorney general in July filed charges including forgery and conspiracy to commit election falsification against 16 Republican fake voters. One of them had his charges dropped after reaching a cooperation agreement, and the fifteen remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.
In Georgia, three fake electors have been charged alongside Trump and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a vast scheme to illegally overturn the presidential election results. They have pleaded not guilty.
In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans posing as voters settled a civil lawsuit, admitting their actions were part of an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. There is no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.
Trump was also sued in federal court in August over the fake voter scheme. The indictment states that when Trump could not convince state officials to illegally influence the election in his favor, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a series of fake voters in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. — to sign certificates falsely declaring that he, not Biden, had won their states.
In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake voters added a caveat, saying the certificate of election was filed in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified voters. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, conducted an investigation into the 2020 election, but voters’ false allegations were not part of that investigation, according to Mayes’ office.
In another election-related case brought by Mayes’ office, two Republican officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed collecting the results of the 2022 general election are facing felony charges. A grand jury indicted Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby in November on charges of conspiracy and interference with an election official. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Republicans charged are Kelli Ward, GOP chair from 2019 to early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, a director of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, who is a member of the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now running for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Republican Party of Arizona; Energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, 2020 Cochise County Republican Committee Chairman; 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, president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
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Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.