The pro-Trump Arizona fake electors scheme: what's in the charging document?

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The indictment against the slate of fake electors in Arizona and the Trump allies who advanced the scheme there includes a host of public statements and private exchanges that show how the group intended to overturn the state's electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020.

Arizona's Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced on Wednesday that a state grand jury charged the 11 false electors and seven others with nine felony counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment from Mayes's office is sure to be a talking point in this year's elections, nearly four years after the acts themselves occurred.

The case's net spans more broadly than the slate of fake electors itself, entangling Trump associates who perpetrated the theory that this "alternative" slate could be used by Congress and then vice-president Mike Pence instead of the state's rightful electors who signed off that Biden won the state.

The documents detail the steps taken behind the scenes to push the concept of using electors for Trump to pressure Pence on 6 January 2021. Trump allies, both those charged in Arizona and those who weren't, were exchanging messages, pressuring elected officials and arranging court cases to benefit the fake electors idea, the indictment shows.

And several of the fake electors themselves, by their public statements, intended for their act of signing falsely that they were the state's true electors to be used by the Trump campaign to disrupt the electoral count and subvert the state's Biden win.

Trump himself is not charged in the Arizona case, though he is listed throughout the indictment as "unindicted co-conspirator 1", a "former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election".

There were also attempts to add caveats to the language in the documents signed by the fake electors in Arizona to note that they were intended only as a backup plan should judges rule in Trump's favor, but that did not happen, the indictment alleges.

The false electors included two sitting state senators, Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. It's not clear how or if the state senate will respond to these charges or if it will affect their legislative actions. The senate Republicans' spokeswoman told the Guardian she checked with a rules attorney in the chamber, who "verified there is no protocol on such a matter, as people are presumed innocent until proven guilty".

The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward was charged, as was her husband, Michael. Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point Action executive, was also charged, as were the other fake electors Jim Lamon, Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.

The Trumpworld figures charged include high-profile allies such as the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, the lawyer John Eastman, the adviser Boris Epshteyn, the attorney Jenna Ellis, the current election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee, Christina Bobb, and the former Trump campaign operative Mike Roman.

In initial documents, the names of Trump allies are redacted, making it somewhat difficult to track who allegedly said what to whom. They are identifiable by their descriptions or other details.

Mayes, who won her race by less than 300 votes in 2022, is already in the Republican-led legislature's crosshairs for this investigation and a host of other issues where she, a Democrat, is at odds with GOP lawmakers. The state house opened a committee to investigate her and her use of the office. The charges are sure to further inflame Republican lawmakers.

Hoffman issued a statement saying he was innocent and intended to "vigorously" defend himself against the charges, and that Mayes had weaponized the attorney general's office for political reasons. "I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process," he wrote.

Kern responded with an "LOL!!" and changed the subject to abortion when a commenter on X said he should resign immediately. The Arizona Republican party put out a statement calling the timing of the indictments "suspiciously convenient and politically motivated" and an example of election interference, a favorite claim of Trump himself in the face of a host of charges.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the rightwing youth organization Turning Point, said he and the organization stand by Bowyer and the others charged.

"The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute," Kirk wrote on X. "They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election. They engaged in no fraud and no deception. In fact, they literally published a press release explaining what they were doing!"

Didn't hedge language despite a warning

Of the seven states that saw a similar fake electors scheme, those in Pennsylvania and New Mexico used language that indicated the electors who signed for Trump were contingent on the signers later being certified as the "duly elected and qualified electors" because of court interventions that were outstanding at the time.

Arizona's documents include no such hedge, instead saying the people who signed on claimed to be the "duly elected and qualified electors" for Trump in the state.

The indictment claims a Pennsylvania attorney raised concerns about that language on 12 December 2020 and requested adding in the contingency language. After that, "unindicted co-conspirator 4", who appears to be the scheme's architect, the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, texted a Trump campaign official to point out the issue.

The US Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

"Mike, I think the language at start of certificate should be changed in all states. Let's look at the language carefully," Chesebro wrote to a Trump ally, presumably Mike Roman.

Chesebro said the hedged language could help prevent the false electors from "possibly facing legal exposure (at the hands of a partisan AG) if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors".

"I don't," the person responded. After Chesebro offered to help draft the language, the Trump operative responded: "Fuck these guys," according to the indictment.

The pressure campaign

To build the narrative of the case, the indictment walks through Trump and his allies' intense pressure campaign on the Maricopa county board of supervisors, the state legislature and the governor, all of whom played some role in election oversight.

The details here are now publicly well-known - they include calls from the White House and Trump allies to people such as the former House speaker Rusty Bowers and the county supervisor Clint Hickman, as well as a call from the White House to the former governor Doug Ducey on the day he signed off on the certification of votes.

Also mentioned is the backlash and ensuing harassment that some of these officials faced from members of their own party for refusing to take part in the efforts to overturn the results.

The indictment walks through the various lawsuits the Trump campaign and other state Republicans filed to try to get their claims of election fraud affirmed in court or disrupt the results in some way, none of which succeeded.

Ward worked to organize the Trump electors along with others. She expressed concerns that, if there weren't an appeal filed in one of the election cases contesting results, it "could appear treasonous" to sign on as an alternate slate without any pending court cases. An appeal in one case, Ward v Jackson, was filed in time for the slate to vote on 14 December 2020.

One appeal, the indictment notes, was filed quickly as a way to "give legal 'cover' for the electors in AZ to 'vote'" to create their slate, a person labeled as "unindicted co-conspirator 5", believed to be the Arizona attorney Jack Wilenchik, wrote in an email at the time.

As proof of the intent to throw the election to Trump, the indictment mentions meetings between Pence, his staff and someone who appears to be Eastman from contextual clues, where the Trump ally lays out to Pence how he could reject electoral votes from certain states, delay the court and ask state legislatures to instead step in and declare a winner. During a meeting with Pence's chief counsel, a charged Trump associate "admitted that his plan would lose if it went before the US supreme court", the indictment says.

The indictment also notes a memo written on 23 December 2020 that envisions Pence refusing to count the Biden electors from Arizona and other states with fake slates because there were multiple slates from those places, thus giving Trump a majority of the remaining electoral votes. This memo, other reporting from the Washington Post confirms, was written by Eastman.

Pence did not follow through, to the dismay of Trump and his allies.

Using their own words

The attorney general uses the fake electors' own words, often displayed publicly on social media platforms, to show their intent was not simply to offer an alternate slate in the face of a potential court order, but to pressure the vice-president and others to use the Trump electors instead.

On 14 December 2020, at the state Republican party headquarters, the electors signed on for Trump. The party posted a picture and video of it to X. Ward wrote, "Oh yes we did! We are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona! #Trump2020 #MAGA." The party released a statement on the action that was similar to a template created by Chesebro, the indictment says.

The next day, Bowyer, of Turning Point, described the move as giving "potential ground to not accept electors from states with competing electors", the indictment says.

Later that month, the 11 fake electors signed on to a lawsuit against Pence from the Texas congressman Louie Gohmert seeking to have the court declare Pence had the authority to decide which electoral votes to use in states that had multiple slates, according to the indictment.

After the Gohmert case was filed, Bowyer wrote on X that the vice-president had the "awesome power" of selecting which slate to use when there were two competing ones, or to select neither.

Kern gave an interview to the conspiracy website Epoch Times where he said the dual slates gave Pence the choice to pick one or the other and that would then likely lead to a "contested electoral process" on 6 January.

"It's going to be just a nice constitutional lesson for all of America to see," Kern said, according to the indictment. A couple days later, Kern called on state leaders to bring an emergency legislative session to "decertify" the Biden electors, then convene a grand jury to investigate election fraud claims. He also was at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The day before the insurrection, Hoffman wrote to Pence and asked him to delay certification and get clarity from the legislature over which slate was "proper and accurate".

Based on their statements and machinations behind the scenes, the indictment concludes that the defendants "deceived the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency, to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona's voters, and deprive Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted".

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