5 more Trump attorneys, aides publicly named in AZ fake elector indictment

Attorney General Kris Mayes has released the names of five more people who were indicted by a grand jury for the part they played in Arizona’s 2020 fake elector scheme to keep former President Donald Trump in the White House. 

Mayes announced on April 24 that a grand jury had indicted 18 people, including all 11 fake electors, for their actions related to the fake elector plot. But she did not initially release the names of seven of the 18 since they had not yet been legally served, although it was easy to figure out who some of them were through statements describing them in the indictment. 

The five additional indictees are: 

• Christina Bobb, the Republican National Committee’s senior counsel for election integrity and a former attorney for the Trump campaign who was accused in the indictment of making “false claims of widespread election fraud in Arizona and in six other states.” 
• John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who is facing possible disbarment in California for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 
• Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump aide who is still one of the former president’s advisors.
• Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for the Trump campaign and a conservative media personality who was censured last year for making false statements about the 2020 election, and who pleaded guilty in October to a felony charge in Georgia for her attempts to overturn the election results. 
• Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign aide who was also indicted in the Georgia case. 

The names of the remaining two indictees have not been released, but it’s clear from how they are labeled in the indictment that they are Rudy Giuliani, who was described as an attorney for Trump who was often referred to as “the mayor,” and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 

The previously named indictees are Arizona’s fake electors: 

• Kelli Ward, former AZGOP chairman
• Arizona Sen. Jake Hoffman, leader of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Arizona Sen. Anthony Kern, member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point USA CEO
• Michael Ward, husband of Kelli Ward  
• Nancy Cottle, a Republican who’s been active in local politics for a decade
• James Lamon, a failed 2022 U.S. Senate candidate
• Robert Montgomery, former chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee
• Samuel Moorhead, former chairman of Gila County Republican Party 
• Lorraine Pellegrino, former president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women
• Gregory Safsten, former executive director of the AZGOP

All 18 of those indicted are charged with conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices and forgery, all felonies. 

The fake electors were indicted by a grand jury on April 23 for signing bogus documents claiming that they were Arizona’s certified electors and that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Like it did in other states, the Trump campaign urged the fake electors to attempt to keep him in office after he lost to Joe Biden. 

Trump is identified in the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 1.”

Georgia, Michigan and Nevada have already brought charges against fake electors there, and Wisconsin is still investigating possible charges for its fake electors. 

Many of those who were indicted in the Arizona case continued to spread misinformation about the 2020 election, claiming that it was stolen from Trump, long after the election was over. 

Sens. Hoffman, of Queen Creek, and Kern, of Glendale, as well as the Arizona Republican Party, all responded to the indictments with outrage and accusations of their own. 

“Today’s indictments by Attorney General Kris Mayes represent a blatant and unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial power, aimed solely at distracting the public from the critical policy debates our country should be focusing on as we approach the 2024 election,” the AZGOP said in a statement on April 24. “The timing of these charges-precisely four years after the 2020 election and as President Biden seeks re-election-is suspiciously convenient and politically motivated. This is not justice; it is pure election interference.”

Hoffman, in a statement, espoused his innocence and alleged that Mayes timed the handing down of the grand jury indictments to bolster Biden’s reelection campaign calling them “naked political persecution.”  

In his own statement, Kern said he was running for the U.S. House of Representative this year to ensure that others aren’t prosecuted for political reasons. 

“When President Trump called for my aid, I answered,” Kern said in a statement. “My reward? A crooked Democrat Attorney General prosecuting me with 9 fabricated felonies.”