PHOENIX — Former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and at least 11 others will be arraigned in a Phoenix court on conspiracy, forgery and fraud charges stemming from their roles in an effort to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat 2020 in Arizona for Joe Biden.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is also expected to be arraigned on Tuesday, although it is unclear whether he will seek a delay. Arizona authorities tried unsuccessfully for several weeks to notify Giuliani of the indictment against him. Giuliani was finally seen Friday night as he walked to his car after celebrating his 80th birthday.
Arizona authorities unveiled criminal charges last month against Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump, a Republican, had won Arizona. The defendants include five lawyers linked to the former president and two former Trump aides. Biden, a Democrat, won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
The indictment alleges that Ward, a former state senator who led the Republican Party in Arizona from 2019 until early 2023, organized the fake electors and urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to declare them the state’s true electors. It says Ward was unable to withdraw her vote as a false voter, even though no legal challenge changed the outcome of the presidential race in Arizona.
Last week, lawyer John Eastman, who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, was the first defendant in the case to be indicted, declaring himself innocent of the charges.
Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case, but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Arizona is the fourth state where allies of the former president have been accused of using false or unsubstantiated claims about election-related voter fraud.
The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona Republican electors met in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate affirming that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and affirming that Trump governed the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted to 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.
Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by Arizona’s 11 fake electors, who asked a federal judge to decertify the results and block the state from sending its results to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, the judge concluded that the Republicans “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.” Days after the action was filed, the 11 participated in the signing of the certificate.
Those to be arraigned Tuesday are Ward; Tyler Bowyer, executive at the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA; State Senator Anthony Kern; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; Robert Montgomery, former chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee; Samuel Moorhead, Republican precinct committeeman in Gila county; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, former president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; Michael Ward, an osteopathic doctor married to Ward; attorneys Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb; and Michael Roman, who was Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations.
Arraignments are scheduled for June 6 for state Sen. Jake Hoffman; on June 7 to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows; and on June 18 to Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn and James Lamon, another Republican who claimed Trump ran the state.
