Arizona Grand Jury Indicts Fake Electors for Conspiracy, Fraud and Forgery
The indictment charges the state's 11 fake electors and 7 redacted individuals.
An Arizona grand jury has today issued an indictment against multiple individuals who allegedly committed fraud through the fake electors scheme in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election to keep former President Donald Trump in the White House. In the charging document released today, eleven individuals have been named - all of whom signed their names as fake electors on an unofficial document. Moreover, seven additional individuals have been indicted but their names are currently redacted. Their identities will be unsealed after they’ve been served the indictment.
The named individuals tonight are Kelli Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lemon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, Gregory Safsten and Michael Ward. Kelli Ward is the former Chair of the Arizona Republican Party. Bowyer is the Chief Operating Officer of Turning Point USA. Both Hoffman and Kern currently serve in the Arizona State Senate.
In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won Arizona with a 49.22-48.91 plurality against then-incumbent Donald Trump. Biden became the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996. A month after the election, Trump electors met across seven states Biden won and falsely submitted their electoral votes for the Republican incumbent. Those documents were sent to the National Archives and the U.S. Congress in the hopes of creating chaos and confusion before the certification on January 6, 2021.
The eleven fake electors in Arizona recorded their meeting at the state’s GOP headquarters wherein they signed the false document. All of them face nine felony counts for conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, and forgery. Fake electors who engaged in this scheme have also been indicted in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada.
At the time of the January 6 insurrection, the Office of the Arizona Attorney General was held by Republican Mark Brnovich. He opted not to investigate this matter. In 2022, he was term-limited and instead ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. Democrat Kris Mayes flipped control of the office in that election - winning by only 280 votes out of over 2.5 million cast. Early on in her tenure, she opened an investigation that has worked for the last year on this case.
In a recorded video released following the indictment, Mayes shared, “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.”