A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly taking part in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-U.S. president Donald Trump in 2020, the state’s attorney-general said on Wednesday.
The court papers list a “former U.S. president,” Mr. Trump, as an unindicted co-conspirator.
The indictment stems from efforts to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in several states in 2020, based on Republican Mr. Trump’s false claims he had been re-elected.
The names of seven defendants are redacted in an indictment that names 11 others. Arizona Attorney-General Kris Mayes said in a press release announcing the charges that those names would be made public after all of the defendants had been served with the indictment.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is among those indicted, said his spokesperson Ted Goodman, although the former New York mayor’s name is redacted.
“The continued weaponization of our justice system should concern every Americans as it does permanent, irrevocable harm to the country. mayor Rudy Giuliani – one of the most effective prosecutors in American history who took down the Mafia, cleaned up the streets of New York and locked up corrupt public officials – is proud to stand up for the countless Americans who raised legitimate concerns surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Mr. Goodman said.
The indictment also identifies one defendant as chief of staff in 2020, the position Mark Meadows held in the Trump White House at that time.
Representatives for Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. presidents are chosen by electors from each state, who cast votes in the Electoral College, where votes are allotted based on each state’s population.
In Arizona and almost all other states, the winner of the state’s popular vote receives all of that state’s electoral votes. To win the presidency a candidate needs 270 votes – a majority of a total 538 electoral votes.
Arizona has 11 electoral votes, and the 11 defendants named in the indictment would correspond to those people who purported to be Arizona’s electors for Mr. Trump.
Arizona was one of seven states where Trump allies sought to award those state’s electoral votes to Mr. Trump even if those states were won by Mr. Biden.
The false electors scheme figures in two criminal trials – in Washington, D.C., and Georgia – charging Mr. Trump with unlawfully seeking to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory.
Rudy Giuliani, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, is among 18 people charged in Arizona with illegally seeking to claim the state's 2020 electoral votes for the then-U.S. president, in an indictment unsealed on April 25 that names Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Reuters