Let Us Hear No More about the Conscience of this Arizona Conservative
18 People Indicted In Arizona Fake Electors Scheme
A sweeping state indictment in Trump’s 2020 fake electors scheme targets 11 (presumably all in-state) named defendants and seven as-yet-unnamed (and presumably all out-of-state) defendants who haven’t yet been served.
The case was investigated and is being brought by Attorney General Kris Mayes (D).
The 11 named defendants are:
- Kelli Ward, former chair of the Arizona Republican Party and Trump fake elector
- Michael Ward, Kelli Ward’s husband and Trump fake elector
- Tyler Bowyer, Trump fake elector
- Jacob Hoffman, Trump fake elector
- Anthony Kern, Trump fake elector
- James Lamon, Trump fake elector
- Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party and Trump fake elector
- Nancy Cottle, Trump fake elector
- Loraine Pellegrino, Trump fake elector
- Robert Montgomery, Trump fake elector
- Samuel Moorhead, Trump fake elector
The seven redacted defendants, based on context and outside reporting, appear to be:
- Mark Meadows
- Rudy Giuliani
- John Eastman
- Boris Epshteyn
- Christina Bobb
- Jenna Ellis
- Mike Roman
The Epshteyn indictment is a big deal given his central role in organizing Trump’s criminal defense team in the numerous cases against him. Bobb is a highly ironic defendant to have in an election interference case since she was just named the RNC’s new “election integrity” chief.
- Count 1: Conspiracy
- Counts 2-3: Fraud
- Counts 4-9: Forgery
Because the names of some of the defendants remain redacted in the indictment, it’s not entirely clear if each defendant is charged with all nine counts, but it appears that way based on the formatting of the redactions.
Among the unindicted conspirators in the case: Trump himself, Kenneth Chesebro, state Sen. Kelly Townsend, former state Rep. Mark Finchem, and former Arizona GOP lawyer Jack Wilenchik.
On the same day Trump emerged as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Arizona fake electors indictment, an investigator in Michigan testified in open court that Trump is also an unindicted co-conspirator in that state’s fake electors scheme, along with Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani.
“Prosecutions of Fake Electors for Trump Gain Ground in Swing States”
“Georgia, Michigan and Nevada have already brought charges against people who posed as electors for Donald Trump, and Arizona and Wisconsin have active investigations.”
Also this snippet:
“Mr. Chesebro, who pleaded guilty to a felony last year in Georgia, later told investigators in Michigan that he had been misled by the Trump campaign and had not known that it was “trying to create chaos in state legislatures.”
“In December, Andrew Hitt, who was head of the Wisconsin Republican Party during the 2020 election, told a local ABC affiliate that he and other fake electors “were tricked” by the Trump campaign and thought they were only acting as a contingency, in case litigation succeeded.”
Amid a growing number of criminal investigations into the 2020 election, some who once cast electoral college votes for the former president say they would not do it again
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/10/trump-fake-electors-charges/
[Excerpts:]
Carroll was one of 84 Republican presidential electors who convened to cast votes for Trump in 2020 across seven states where Joe Biden had been declared the certified winner. And he is among the electors in six of those states who have become embroiled in criminal investigations of their actions — saddled with legal bills and in some cases facing criminal charges. Carroll says he never again wants to be involved with a criminal investigation.
In the past few months, 25 of those 84 electors have been charged with felonies, such as forgery, false statements and filing false documents. Ten more have agreed as part of a lawsuit settlement to not serve as electors in any election in which Trump is on the ballot. And 13 others in Georgia have been labeled “unindicted co-conspirators.”
More charges could soon come in Arizona, where Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) took office in January and launched an investigation that her Republican predecessor refused to do.
The investigation has picked up speed over the summer and through the fall, when members of a well-staffed prosecutorial team met with witnesses to learn about their knowledge about the strategy.
As part of the team’s interviews about the alternate elector strategy, Arizona investigators have also spent hours interviewing people about efforts by Trump and his allies to delay canvassing of the election results. One interview lasted hours and about five people from the attorney general’s team attended, a level of attention that conveys the seriousness of the probe, according to someone familiar with the session who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.
[Boldface added]
A Trump ally is ready to come clean on Georgia’s fake electors. You listening, Kris Mayes?
Opinion: Prosecutors in Georgia and Michigan are putting the screws to their fake electors and election schemers. AG Kris Mayes should follow their lead.
Laurie RobertsA key figure in the fake elector scheme took a plea deal in Georgia on Friday, agreeing to come clean about his part in the conspiracy to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Are you seeing this, Attorney General Kris Mayes?
Trump-aligned lawyer Kenneth Chesebro wrote memos detailing how Republicans could send false slates of presidential electors to Congress in an attempt to give Donald Trump the win or at least delay the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
According to his Fulton County, Ga., indictment, one of his memos “provides detailed, state-specific instructions for how Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would meet and cast electoral votes” for Trump, even though he lost the election in those states.
Chesebro, who is pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit filing false documents, on Friday agreed to testify at any future trials of his fellow co-conspirators. He also agreed to turn over all emails and text messages to the district attorney’s office.
What does Chesebro know about Arizona?
[Boldface added]Have got your plane ticket to Atlanta yet, AG Mayes?
It might be interesting to see what light Chesebro can shed on Arizona’s 11 fake electors.
Specifically, how they came to be meeting at state Republican Party headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, signing documents falsely claiming to be “duly elected and qualified” to cast Arizona’s electoral votes for the guy who didn’t win.
How these “patriots” — including two who are now state senators (Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern), the now-former chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party (Kelli Ward) and a top executive with Turning Point USA (Tyler Bowyer) — came up with the same wild idea that just coincidentally occurred to Republicans in six other swing states won by Biden.
Or how, even as those phonies were meeting in Phoenix to cast their non-existent votes for Trump, across town a group of Republican legislators were signing a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Congress urging them to accept those “alternate” electoral votes.
Or how then-Rep. Mark Finchem, one of the state’s loudest stop the stealers, hand carried the lawmakers’ request to Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, putting it into the hands of one of Trump’s strongest acolytes on Capitol Hill, Rep. Andy Biggs.
Or how Biggs, along with Reps. Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko, then voted the next day to reject Arizona’s legitimate electoral votes.
[Boldface added]Where does Mayes’ investigation’ stand?
This wasn’t just 11 local Arizona rubes who decided on a whim to protest Biden’s win by casting a symbolic electoral vote for Trump.
This was a carefully planned scheme, meticulously coordinated — from the seeds of doubt deeply planted to erode trust in our elections to the fake electors who were part of a plot to steal the vote in Arizona and other swing states to the storming of the nation’s Capitol to stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
And certain Arizonans appear to be in on it up to their eyeballs.
Fake electors:Had a cast of characters helping them
Wouldn’t it be nice to hear what Chesebro might know about that?
Mayes vowed during last year’s campaign to investigate Arizona’s fake electors. She reportedly assigned a team of prosecutors to the investigation in May. Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, in July told the Washington Post the investigation was in the “fact-gathering” phase.Since then, we’ve heard nothing.
Michigan is bringing charges. What about us?
Meanwhile, in Michigan, one of that state’s 16 fake electors this week agreed to testify against his fellow phonies in return for dismissal of eight felony counts, including forgery and conspiracy to publish a false statement.
The Michigan 16, just like the Arizona 11, met at their state GOP headquarters and signed documents stating they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors.”
“That was a lie … and each of the defendants knew it,” Michigan prosecutors said, in their charging documents.
The Michigan fake elector whose charges were dismissed has agreed to “cooperate fully” with the AG’s office, agreeing to testify at trial and key hearings and provide investigators with “any and all relevant documents.”
Michigan in July became the first state to bring charges against the fake electors.
It shouldn’t be the last.
Simply put, Arizona’s fake electors and their co-conspirators tried to steal our vote.
There should be a penalty for that.
AG Mayes, I hear Atlanta is nice this time of year.
Trump attorneys guided false electors in Georgia, GOP chair says
In Tuesday’s filing, Shafer underscored that the strategy was driven almost entirely by lawyers acting on Trump’s behalf. The false electors were later used by Trump allies to attempt to foment a conflict on Jan. 6, 2021 and derail the transfer of power to President Joe Biden.
Shafer is among the 18 defendants indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, alongside Trump as part of a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election.
“The Election Denial Industrial Complex: Meet The Individuals Who Have Made A Cottage Industry Out Of Election Challenges”
Accountable.US report:
A number of individuals have personally benefited from promoting election denial and efforts to challenge election results based on unsubstantiated claims, beginning with the 2020 presidential election and most recently the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. Those making a cottage industry out of election denial include attorney Kurt Olsen, newly elected Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman, Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, and “election integrity” activists Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips….
[Excerpt:]
● Jake Hoffman, a newly elected State-Senator from Arizona, endorsed Kari Lake for governor and continued to support her efforts to challenge her election loss following her defeat to Katie Hobbs. Hoffman is the owner of an LLC that was paid more than $2 million supporting her campaign. In addition to receiving a significant amount of money from a pro-Lake PAC, Hoffman’s company took over a quarter million dollars from Turning Point PAC, a PAC run by Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk, including a payment made on election day. Following the gubernatorial election, Kari Lake’s campaign paid Hoffman’s LLC more than $270,000 for telemarketing services as Lake continued to advance her claims of election fraud following her loss. Hoffman went on to promote conspiracy theories about Lake’s election loss on Kirk’s web show and in Reuters, going so far as to call for the results of the election
The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democratic Experience
First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has set its sights on democracy – the principles, the process and even the word itself.
By Robert Draper
August 15, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/magazine/arizona-republicans-democracy
Kirk helped start Turning Point USA in 2012. His organization did not take long to become one of the nation’s leading promoters of political disinformation. During the 2016 presidential election, a study conducted for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found, memes created by Kirk’s group were amplified by the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency as part of Russia’s effort to aid Trump’s candidacy. Two years later, according to an investigation by The Guardian, Kirk’s organization contracted an Arizona digital marketing firm, Rally Forge, to promote deceptive messages on Facebook with the apparent objective of persuading some Democratic voters to peel away and side with Green Party candidates, as was the case in 2016, when Jill Stein’s vote totals in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin exceeded Trump’s margin of victory in those three swing states.
In 2020, The Washington Post reported that Turning Point Action (an affiliate of Turning Point USA) commissioned Rally Forge to churn out disinformation about Covid and election security, using a Phoenix-based campaign likened to a troll farm that included teenagers as employees. That same year, Rally Forge’s chief executive, Jake Hoffman, was banned from Twitter. He was also elected to Arizona’s Legislature and was among the group of Arizona Republicans who, with Kelli Ward, proclaimed themselves to be electors in seeking to overturn Trump’s defeat. Hoffman is now vice-chairman of the state’s House Committee on Government and Elections and on primary night became a G.O.P. nominee for the State Senate. [Boldface added]
The effect of disinformation on the growing extremism of Arizona’s conservative activist community was described to me by a former state Republican operative who asked not to be named so that he could speak candidly about a trend he found to be disturbing. He told me that he frequently received emails from several of the state’s conservative precinct committee persons. “I’ve never known a group of people, many of whom I genuinely liked, to be so misinformed,” the former operative told me. “I wish I could send you a file of memes that I’ve seen from them over the years. They’re lies or half-truths designed to incite rage. So, what ends up happening is you start to get all these clustered groups that start to spread disinformation, but they’re also the same people that are the root source of power in Arizona’s political system, which is the local precinct committee.”
The most telling among Trump’s Arizona endorsements is that of the secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, whom Trump has described in an official statement as “a true warrior” who took an “incredibly powerful stance on the Massive Voter Fraud that took place in the 2020 Presidential Election Scam.” Indeed, Finchem, as a state representative, was one of Arizona’s first public officials to baselessly claim that the state’s voting machines had been corrupted in Biden’s favor. At a candidate forum I attended in mid-July, Finchem disclosed to the audience that he had charged $5,000 to his personal American Express card to rent out a Phoenix hotel conference room where, on Nov. 30, 2020, he and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani staged a multihour presentation to Finchem’s fellow state legislators of supposed fraud in Arizona, even as state officials were certifying the election for Biden a few miles away. As secretary of state, Finchem would be Arizona’s top election official during a potential rematch of Trump and Biden in 2024 and could work to invalidate the results, which the current secretary of state, the Democrat Katie Hobbs, now running for governor, refused to do in 2020.
The enmeshment of Finchem and other Arizona Republicans in the tumultuous final weeks of Trump’s presidency is remarkable in its depth and complexity. On Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, Representative Paul Gosar conceived the first protest of the results anywhere in the United States, marching to the Maricopa County recorder’s office in Phoenix, where the ballots were still being tallied. Joining Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell in a postelection lawsuit seeking to invalidate Arizona’s results, on the factually unsupported grounds that “old-fashioned 19th-century ballot stuffing” had occurred there, was the Phoenix lawyer Alexander Kolodin, who on primary night won a seat in the State Legislature (no Democrat will oppose him in the general election). As the flurry of Arizona lawsuits failed one by one, the state’s G.O.P. chairwoman, Ward — who had also filed an unsuccessful election lawsuit — maintained a weekslong pressure campaign against the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to throw out the results, saying in one ominous text message (among many that were obtained by The Arizona Republic), “I know you don’t want to be remembered as the guy who led the charge to certify a fraudulent election.”
Two weeks after the Nov. 30 election-fraud hearing convened by Finchem and Giuliani, while state officials were certifying the Arizona results, the official state G.O.P. Twitter account posted a video of Ward and 10 other Republicans signing documents falsely proclaiming themselves to be the state’s electors and declaring the election results illegitimate. Among the phony electors were three Republicans who would later appear on the 2022 primary ballot: the U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon and the State Senate candidates Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman. (Lamon was defeated by Masters; Kern and Hoffman won.) This fake-elector scheme had been in the works for over a month and involved Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who in emails obtained by The Washington Post urged two Arizona lawmakers, Speaker Rusty Bowers and State Representative Shawnna Bolick, to “take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen.”
When that maneuver also failed to bear fruit, several Arizona Republicans joined with Trump in attempting a final desperate postelection measure. On Dec. 21, 2020, Gosar and his fellow Arizona congressman Andy Biggs, then the head of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, were among a group of G.O.P. House members who met with Trump in the White House to discuss actions including calling on Vice President Mike Pence to decertify the election results unilaterally. Two weeks later, on Jan. 5, 2021, 16 Arizona legislators — Bolick, Kern and Finchem among them — signed a letter to Pence that was also signed by Republican legislators in four other contested states, urging him to delay certifying the election results for 10 days. Pence refused to do so, and on Jan. 6, Kern and Finchem were among the Arizonans who descended on the Capitol. Finchem photographed the riotous mob and posted it on Twitter with the caption, “What happens when the People feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud.”
As a result of their involvement in Trump’s efforts to steal back the presidency, Finchem, Ward, Biggs and other Arizona Republicans have been issued subpoenas by the Jan. 6 committee. (Though Ward taunted Democrats last year for their resistance to the State Senate audit in Arizona — “What are they hiding?” she demanded at the time — she has since sued to block the committee from obtaining her cellphone records.) Back home in Arizona, however, they have faced no reprisals within their party. Far from it: Their willingness to assist Trump in overturning the 2020 election was rewarded across the boards on primary night.
There was no mystery as to why. According to a state survey of Arizona voters last year, 61 percent of Republicans believed the 2020 election “was stolen from President Trump.” Perhaps not by coincidence, the G.O.P. primary candidates who spoke the most vociferously about fraud in the 2020 elections were those like Kari Lake and Blake Masters, who were not in Trump’s trenches back then and now had to work overtime to prove themselves fit for combat against the enemy.
The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democratic Experience
First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has set its sights on democracy – the principles, the process and even the word itself.
By Robert Draper
August 15, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/magazine/arizona-republicans-democracy
The Daily Agenda: Time to vote on voting
May 18, 2022
There’s bad policy, and then there’s bad policy … Complaints beget complaints … And Gila monsters are mostly chill.
Early this year, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers drew a line in the sand between sanity and election denialism, declaring that the latter had no place in the Arizona House.Yesterday, he allowed a half-dozen of Republican-backed election bills to reach the House floor for a vote, but not the ones that election deniers want.The six bills represent the spectrum of what should be considered up for debate at the Capitol: Some are sound policies that will help instill confidence in elections (for those willing to listen), while others are based on the election fraud narrative but are relatively reasonable public policy nonetheless.But none of the ideas seek to overturn past or future elections, eliminate early and mail-in voting or promote absurd ideas like one-day, in-person voting.And in that respect, the Arizona House deserves some praise. Debating policy — even what we’d consider “bad” policy — is fair game. Trying to take away peoples’ ability to choose their own leaders is not.Some of the bills received support from Democrats. Others failed, though only because not enough Republicans were present to vote for them. We expect to see those bills return and pass.
May 17th 2022
Hoffman to Pence in letter: Don’t count Arizona’s electoral votes
Richard Ruelas
Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK
February 18, 2022
https://arizonarepublic-az-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=303c80b08_134835e
The day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, an Arizona lawmaker, who had signed a document falsely asserting he was one of the state’s presidential electors, sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence asking him to not accept the state’s official electoral votes.
The two-page letter sent by Rep. Jake Hoffman on Jan. 5, 2021, had the same aim as the rioters would the next day: delaying the official certification of Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and the victory of President Joe Biden.
Hoffman’s letter asked Pence to order that Arizona’s electors not be decided by the popular vote of the citizens, but instead by the members of the state Legislature.
Hoffman, in the letter, asked Pence to “seek clarification from the Arizona legislature as to which slate of electors were proper and accurate.”
Arizona was one of seven states in which groups of Trump supporters sent documents to the U.S. Senate falsely claiming to represent a slate of electors that should be counted, thereby providing a reason to turn the normally-routine counting of electoral votes into chaos.
In his letter to Pence, Hoffman did not mention that he was one of the 11 Republicans who falsely called themselves Arizona’s “duly elected and qualified electors.”
The letter was released to The Republic on Wednesday in response to a public records request. The letter was first obtained by MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Tuesday.
Hoffman declined to address the letter Wednesday when asked about it during a recess of a committee hearing. “I’ve got no comment for you,“ Hoffman said.
Hoffman, in the letter, told Pence that he understood “the magnitude and historic nature of the actions I am requesting.” He said that what he saw as rampant election fraud meant the most just outcome would be to “return the power to the level of government that is both constitutionally empowered and closest to ‘We The People’ – the state legislature.”
Letter praised Pence
Hoffman heaped praise on Pence, mentioning his high integrity, “judiciousness, discernment and steadfast resolve.”
Hoffman said Pence was akin to the Biblical figure Esther, who saved the Jewish people from slaughter. “Just like the Scriptures teach through the life story of Esther, I believe that God has placed you, and you alone, in this precise moment in history, and in this precise role to protect this bastion of freedom for all mankind.”
The letter was sent on letterhead with the official state seal of Arizona. It had a return address of the State Capitol. Hoffman had been elected to the Arizona Legislature in the 2020 election, but had not been sworn in yet. He used the title of representative-elect in the letter.
The month before his election, Hoffman’s Twitter account was suspended and his business, Rally Forge, was banned from Facebook.
Rally Forge, according to a statement from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, employed a tactic of creating accounts with fake names to post what Facebook called “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The Washington Post reported that much of this activity was done by teenagers in Arizona.
Hoffman could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Pence was under intense pressure to not certify the election results as he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump, on Twitter, wrote on Jan. 5, 2021, that “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.”
Pence issued a statement ahead of the joint session of Congress saying he would follow the accepted procedure and count the certified electoral votes. News of that reached the crowd that was walking from a Trump speech at the D.C. park, the Ellipse, to the U.S. Capitol. As people breached the nation’s legislative buildings, some started chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Gov. Doug Ducey had certified Arizona’s election for Biden on Nov. 30, 2020. The electors for Biden met on Dec. 14, 2020, for the ceremonial casting of the electoral college ballots. Those were sent off to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives, under a procedure outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
But, that same day, the 11 Republican electors who would have cast their ballots for Trump had he won, met anyway. They held a ceremony at the state Republican Party headquarters to cast what they asserted were Arizona’s official electoral college votes. They also sent the documents to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives.
That action, which was mirrored in six other states, has drawn the attention of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
Arizona Republicans under investigation
The committee on Tuesday subpoenaed Kelli Ward, the head of the Republican Party of Arizona, asking her to provide documents and testimony.
The committee also sent a subpoena to Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem. He was not among the electors who signed, but he became a national figure while falsely promoting the idea that Arizona’s elections were riddled with systemic errors.
Reached on the House floor before a session, Finchem declined comment on the subpoena.
“I’ve got nothing to say,” Finchem said.
The committee has also issued subpoenas to two other Arizona electors: Nancy Cottle, who signed the document as “Chairperson, Electoral College of Arizona;” and Loraine Pellegrino, who signed as secretary.
The committee also sought cell phone records from Ward’s provider, T-Mobile. Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, who also signed on as a fake elector, have filed suit in federal court in Arizona to block that subpoena.
Hoffman, in a brief January interview, refused to discuss the origin of the plan to convene the false slate of electors. Video of him refusing to answer a Republic reporter’s questions about how he came to know where to be that day received airtime on national news networks.
Hoffman, in January, did say he felt he was empowered to declare himself an elector because, at the time, the election results in Arizona were the subject of court cases. “Which is why we felt it appropriate to provide Congress and the vice president with dueling options,” Hoffman said at the time.
None of those court cases, when resolved, found any fraud in the state’s election.
Hoffman, in his interview, acknowledged that his action was unusual, but defended it.
“In unprecedented times, unprecedented actions occur,” he said.
Hoffman sent the letter by email to Paul Teller, who carried the dual roles of deputy assistant to President Trump and director of Strategic Initiatives for Pence. Hoffman asked that a copy of the letter be sent to Trump. He copied the email to Tim Pataki, who was an assistant to Trump. Pataki, according to an email, responded, “Copy. Thank you, Jake.”
State Rep. Jake Hoffman, in the letter, told Pence that he understood “the magnitude and historic nature of the actions I am requesting.” He said that what he saw as rampant election fraud meant the most just outcome would be to “return the power to the level of government that is both constitutionally empowered and closest to ‘We The People’ – the state legislature.”
“The right to vote is preservative of all other rights. It is not just another issue alongside other issues. It is foundational. It is the reason why any of us has the privilege of standing here in the first place. It is about the covenant we have with one another as an American people. E Pluribus Unum, out of many one. It above all else must be protected.”