Charges revealed against former Trump chief of staff in Arizona fake elector case
Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, faces the same conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges as the other named defendants in the Arizona fake voter case, the attorney general’s office says.
PHOENIX — Former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff faces the same conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges as the other named defendants in the Arizona fake voter case, the attorney general’s office said Wednesday.
Mark Meadows was not named in a grand jury indictment last week because he had not been served with a subpoena, although he was easily identified from the descriptions in the document. He has since been apprehended, with nine felonies revealed, Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
George Terwilliger, an attorney for Meadows, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP. He previously referred to the indictment against Arizona as a “blatantly political and politicized accusation that will be challenged and defeated.”
The charges make Arizona the fourth state where allies of the former president are accused of using false or unproven claims of voter fraud in connection with the election. Joe Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
The indictment against one defendant, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and lawyer associated with Trump, has not yet been made public.
Trump himself was not charged, but was named an unindicted co-conspirator.
The 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump won in Arizona are among 18 defendants in the case. They include a former Republican Party chairman, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers.
The 11 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 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.
The others are Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations, and four lawyers accused of orchestrating an effort to use forged documents to convince Congress not to certify Biden’s victory: John Eastman, Christina Bobb , Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis.
___ Associated Press writers Jacques Billeaud and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this story.