An Arizona grand jury indictment of 18 people who impersonated or helped organize a list of voters falsely claiming that the former president donald trump winning the state in 2020 could help shape the landscape of challenges for the 2024 elections.
The indictment issued Wednesday is part of a campaign to prevent a repeat of 2020, when Trump and his allies falsely claimed he won swing states. filed dozens of lawsuits challenging unsuccessfully Bidenvictory and tried to get Congress to let Trump remain in power. This campaign culminated in the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol.
The penalties accruing for this effort include lawyers who helped Trump be expelled, censored It is sanctioned. Added to this are multimillion-dollar investments defamationpenalties and now criminal charges in four states for spreading lies about the 2020 elections. This effort included the presentation of so-called fake voters arguing that Trump had actually won the states and that Congress should recognize them, rather than the electors won by President Joe Biden.
“People are going to have to think twice before they do things that could undermine elections,” said David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and co-author of “The Big Truth,” about the danger of election deniers. 2020. “The deterrent effect is real.”
Trump himself faces federal charges for his effort to overturn the election, as well as a separate charge of Fulton County, Georgia. On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard arguments about Trump’s claim that he should be immune from prosecution for his actions while serving as president. While the justices appeared willing to reject that claim, several expressed reservations about federal charges that could delay the case until after the November election.
Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department official who also worked in the Biden White House, noted the different pace of the fallout for Trump and those he called the former president’s “lieutenants” in challenges to the 2020 election results.
“One of the things that most promotes deterrence is speed and severity,” Levitt said. “Although the wheels of justice are turning slowly, they are turning and we are seeing consequences for the lieutenants of this conspiracy.”
Some of the broader consequences may have arisen from the accusations of so-called fake voters in Arizona, Michigan It is Nevada, all states with Democratic attorneys general. Several people targeted in the wide-ranging Georgia indictment also were charged relating to a false electoral scheme.
The 18 people indicted in Arizona include Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who was recently named head of “Election Integrity” at the Republican National Committee. Trump was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
“This is not some kind of game. This is not some kind of fantasy football league,” Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview Thursday. .”
The breadth of the Arizona charge, announced by state Attorney General Kris Mayes, has drawn sharp criticism from some out-of-state defendants.
“The phenomenon of partisan ‘legal warfare’ becomes more troubling every day,” said Charles Burnham, an attorney with attorney John Eastman, who advised Trump in his 2020 legal fight and faces possible expulsion in California and more criminal charges in Georgia.
This follows accusations from the 16 alleged Trump voters who claimed their candidate won in Michigan, the six in Nevada and three in the Fulton County, Georgia case.
In a speech in Georgia earlier this year, Eastman noted how fake Trump electors in Wisconsin had to agree that Biden won the state and promise not to serve as electors in 2024 as a condition of resolving a civil lawsuit brought by two Democrats. He portrayed it as part of a larger effort to suppress dissent regarding the 2020 election – although assessments, recounts It is audits in every swing state where Trump contested his defeat, all affirmed Biden’s victory.
“The government has spoken, so if you don’t bend the knee we will destroy you,” Eastman said.
Prosecutors have a different view of their cases.
“As we prepare for the 2024 presidential election, today’s indictments are the first in an ongoing effort to not only seek justice for the mistakes of the past, but to ensure they do not happen again,” said Michigan Attorney General , Dana Nessel, in a statement. last year, when her office filed her allegations.
In addition to the accusations, Congress has taken a significant step towards cutting off other avenues for electoral harm. A bipartisan bill signed by Biden in 2022 makes it more difficult for rival electoral slates to be filed, requiring that only those certified by a state’s governor go to Congress for certification.
“The possibility of alternative voters has diminished incredibly,” said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Project 65 is an organization formed to seek legal discipline against lawyers involved in filing dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits challenging Trump’s 2020 loss. Michael Teter, the group’s managing director, said the threat has already had an impact by decreasing the enthusiasm among election deniers for litigation challenging his many losses at the polls in 2022.
“I don’t think we’re going to see the same kind of effort to use the legal system in 2024,” Teter said, adding that he hopes Trump challenge the results if he loses at the polls. “But I don’t think they will use the judicial system in the same way and I don’t think they will use a scheme like the fake voter.
“I don’t think many people will want to sign up for this again.”
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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
