This week’s grand jury felony indictment of 18 people — from sitting Arizona Republican senators to former top aides for Donald Trump — offers a window into the threats tied to an alleged fake elector scheme to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden. “Very strange and unsettling phone calls telling me to do my duty and vote to elect electors who will vote for Trump. Very stressful-attacks and tens of thousands of emails to intimidate me.”
Those accounts are from then-Republican House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers who served in the state Legislature from 2015 to 2023 and are cited in the 58-page court record outlined Wednesday by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
The nine-count indictment of 11 Arizona Republicans includes class 2, 4 and 5 felony charges of conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices and forgery.
Former President Trump is not charged and is cited as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”
The charges stem from a 13-month investigation and center on the 11 people who allegedly signed a fake document claiming Trump won Arizona’s Electoral College votes in 2020.
The seven Trump aides’ names are redacted because they have not yet been served with the charges against them, according to a statement from Mayes, who ran as a Democrat and was registered as Republican until 2019.
Still, several of the Trump allies’ identities were clear from specific details such as with the president’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani who was described as “An attorney for Unindicted Coconspirator 1 who was often identified as ‘the Mayor.’”
The indictment offers timelines and insights into attempts to keep Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 presidential election. The investigation into Giuliani is described as follows:
“He spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona and nationally shortly after November 3, 2020. He presided over a “hearing” in downtown Phoenix on November 30, 2020, where he falsely claimed that Arizona’s election officials “have made no effort to find out” if the results of the recent presidential election were accurate. He pressured the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Arizona legislators to change the outcome of Arizona’s election, and he was responsible for encouraging Republican electors in Arizona and in six other contested states to vote for Trump-Pence on December 14, 2020.”
Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows is also not named in the indictment, however, a defendant is listed as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1’s Chief of Staff in 2020.”
“He worked with members of the Trump Campaign to coordinate and implement the false Republican electors’ votes in Arizona and six other states,” the indictment states.
Those named in the felony indictment are:
- State Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek
- State Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale
- Kelli Ward, former Arizona Republican Party chair
- Michael Ward, a Republican advocate and husband of Kelli Ward
- Tyler Bowyer, a leader with the Republican National Committee and executive with Turning Point Action
- James Lamon, former U.S. Senate candidate
- Robert Montgomery, former chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee
- Samuel Moorhead, a former leader of the Gila County Republican Party
- Nancy Cottle, chairperson of the Electoral College of Arizona allegedly created to undermine the 2020 presidential election and keep Trump in office
- Loraine Pellegrino, secretary of the Electoral College of Arizona allegedly created to undermine the 2020 presidential election and keep Trump in office
- Gregory Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party
As news of the sweeping felony indictment tied to Trump — who is running against Biden in the 2024 election — spread across the nation, several of those charged fought back. Hoffman took to social media to denounce Mayes.
“Let me be unequivocal, I am innocent of any crime, I will vigorously defend myself, and I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process,” he said in a post on X. “Kris Mayes & the Democrats’ naked corruption and weaponization of government will long be a stain on the history of our great state and nation.”
Mayes posted a video statement on social media.
“I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all,” she said in part on X. “I will not allow American democracy to be undermined. It’s too important. Arizona’s election was free and fair. The people of Arizona elected President Biden. Unwilling to accept this fact, the defendants charged by the state grand jury allegedly schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency. The scheme, had it succeeded, would have deprived Arizona’s voters of their right to have their votes counted for their chosen president. It effectively would have made their right to vote meaningless.”
The investigation remains ongoing and an unredacted version of the indictment is expected to be made public after all defendants have been served, according to a statement from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Read the felony indictment:
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
