Giuliani and other Trump allies charged in Arizona election case

Giuliani and other Trump allies charged in Arizona election case

Charges against Rudolph W. Giuliani and 10 other allies of Donald J. Trump were underway Tuesday morning in a criminal case in Arizona that accuses them of trying to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election.

A total of 50 people — including Mr. Trump, who secured the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race — now face charges related to election interference in four states. A number of Trump allies have already pleaded guilty or reached cooperation agreements in cases in Georgia and Michigan.

Mr. Giuliani, who was served with a notice of his charges on Friday, was scheduled to appear virtually at his arraignment, while most of the other defendants appeared in person at a courthouse in Phoenix on Tuesday. The other defendants include Christina Bobb, a Trump 2020 campaign adviser who is now the election integrity adviser for the Republican National Committee, and Kelli Ward, a former head of the Republican Party of Arizona.

Ms. Ward was the first to be charged on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty.

All defendants in the Arizona case are charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery. Others will be charged next month, including Boris Epshteyn, one of Trump's top lawyers, and Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff.

The first to be charged in the case was John Eastman, a lawyer who helped devise a scheme to use fake electors for Mr. Trump in swing states that he lost; Mr. Eastman was arraigned in Phoenix last week and pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Trump has not been charged in the Arizona case. He is listed in the indictment as “Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1.”

Mr. Giuliani was the last of the Arizona defendants to be served a notice of his charges, a necessary step before arraignment. The office of Kris Mayes, Arizona's attorney general, said Mr. Giuliani evaded efforts to serve him for several days. On Friday, Mr. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, said posted on X a photo of himself, with the caption: “If Arizona authorities can't find me by tomorrow morning: 1. They should dismiss the charges; 2. They must admit that they cannot count votes.” The photo has now been removed.

He was fired that evening, after leaving a party for his 80th birthday.

“The final defendant was subpoenaed moments ago,” Ms. Mayes, a Democrat, wrote in a social media post Friday evening. “@RudyGiuliani no one is above the law.”

Over the weekend, Mr. Giuliani wrote on Facebook that he had “no idea Arizona was looking for me” until “someone told me there was a news article saying they were having a hard time finding me.”

Writing that he had “accepted service as a gentleman with dignity,” he added: “I have done nothing wrong.”

Thomas F. Jacobs, an attorney for Ms. Bobb, said the case had numerous flaws and would not be successful against any of the defendants. “You have to prove it to a Maricopa County jury, which will be made up of members of both parties,” he said, adding, “I can't logically see it as anything other than a political move.”

Ms. Mayes secured charges against all 11 people who served as fake Trump electors in Arizona, as well as seven Trump advisers. Mr. Trump and some of the same advisers were among those charged in a similar case in Fulton County, Georgia. The attorneys general of Michigan and Nevada have filed charges that focus solely on the people who signed up to be fake voters in those areas. states.

None of the cases are likely to go to trial before November, guaranteeing that the legal battle over Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election will continue even after the 2024 election.

Mr. Giuliani was directly involved in efforts to overturn Mr. Trump's loss at the ballot box in Arizona. Rusty Bowers, a former speaker of the Arizona House, testified that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump put pressure on him to get the state legislature to review Arizona's vote.

Mr. Bowers testified that during a phone call on November 22, 2020, Mr. Giuliani made numerous claims of voter fraud and promised to provide evidence of the alleged fraud, but never did. “Aren't we all Republicans here?” Mr. Bowers recalled Mr. Giuliani's statement. “I think we would get a better reception.”

According to Mr. Bowers' testimony, Mr. Giuliani sought ways to decertify the election results in Arizona during a meeting on December 1, 2020. Mr. Bowers said that Mr. Giuliani told him at the meeting: “We don't have the evidence, but we have a lot of theories.”

“We all looked at each other and said, Did he really say that?” Mr. Bowers told members of Congress.

Mr. Bowers ultimately rejected efforts to interfere with Arizona's election results.

Ms. Ward's involvement began “almost immediately after the election,” according to the indictment, when she sent messages to Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors urging them to delay certification of the results. She and her husband Michael, who is also charged, both acted as fake voters.

So far, the defendants in the various cases have generally not challenged evidence showing the steps Mr. Trump and his allies took to stay in power despite his defeat. Instead, they have argued that their actions were protected by the First Amendment or immunity, or they have argued that they were merely considering the possibility that Trump's campaign would prevail in the legal battle against Mr. Biden's victory .

Rowan Moore Gerety contributed reporting.