Jim Troupis suspended from the Committee on Judicial Conduct

In the picture: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks in federal court in Washington on December 15, 2023. Giuliani, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, was among those charged in an election interference case in Arizona on April 24, 2024.

On April 24, 2024, a grand jury in the U.S. state of Arizona indicted former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, attorney Rudy Giuliani, and 16 others for attempting to use so-called false electors to overturn Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

The indictment names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely claiming Trump won Arizona in 2020. They include the former state party chairman, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two incumbent state legislators. They are each charged with nine counts of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the indictment.

Trump, described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator, argues he cannot be prosecuted for acts he committed while serving as president. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday in his attempt to avoid federal prosecution over his efforts to overturn his defeat.

With the indictment, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with making false or unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud related to the election. Ahead of a likely rematch with Biden in November, Trump continues to spread lies about the last election that are repeated by many of his supporters.

Descriptions of other unnamed defendants reference Mike Roman, Trump’s director of campaign operations; John Eastman, a lawyer who developed a strategy to persuade Congress not to certify the election; and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who worked with Giuliani. Eastman and Bobb did not respond to text messages seeking comment, nor did a lawyer representing Roman in a Georgia case.

The 11 people nominated as Republican electors for Arizona met in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a document declaring that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and that Trump had won the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party 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 the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who later signed the certificate declaring Trump the winner.

In their lawsuit, they asked a judge to nullify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and prevent the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”

A few days after the dismissal of this lawsuit, the eleven Republicans participated in the signing of the document.

The charges in Arizona follow a series of charges against fraudulent electors in other states.

The Republicans facing charges include Kelli Ward, who served as chair of the state Republican Party from 2019 until early 2023; State Senator Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive at the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who is affiliated with the Republican National Committee; State Senator Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now running in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy executive James Lamon, who lost a Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 2022; Robert Montgomery, chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a member of the Gila County Republican Precinct Committee; Nancy Cottle, who was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women in 2020; Loraine Pellegrino, former president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.