Arizona Attorney General Says Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was indicted in the state’s fake voter case alongside 17 other accused for his role in trying to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes posted the news about the Trump-aligned lawyer on his X account Friday evening.
“The last accused was purged a few moments ago. @RudyGiuliani no one is above the law,” Mayes wrote.
Attorney General spokesman Richie Taylor said in an email to The Associated Press on Saturday that Giuliani faces the same charges as the other defendants, including charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
Giuliani’s political advisor, Ted Goodman, confirmed that Giuliani was served Friday evening after his 80th birthday celebration as he walked out to the car.
“We look forward to a full substantiation soon,” Goodman said in a statement Saturday.
The indictment alleges that Giuliani “pressured” Arizona lawmakers and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to change the outcome of Arizona’s election and was responsible for having encouraged Republican voters in Arizona and six other contested states to vote for Trump.
Taylor said an unredacted copy of the indictment would be released Monday. He said Giuliani is expected to appear in court Tuesday unless the court grants him a delay.
Marc PresTrump’s former chief of staff, is among those charged in this case.
Neither Meadows nor Giuliani were named in the redacted grand jury indictment released earlier because they were not served with it, but they were easily identifiable based on descriptions in the document. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday that Meadows had been served and confirmed that he was charged with the same charges as the other named defendants, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
With these indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been accused of using false or unproven claims about election-related voter fraud.
Giuliani faces other lawsuits and a bankruptcy judge said last week that he was “troubled” by the state of the case and for missed deadlines for filing financial disclosure reports. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148 million to two former election workers for spreading a false conspiracy theory about their role in the 2020 election.
Giuliani was also indicted last year by a grand jury in Georgiawhere he is accused of leading Trump’s efforts to coerce Georgia state lawmakers into ignoring the will of voters and illegally appointing pro-Trump electors to the electoral colleges.
Among the defendants are 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely stating that Trump won in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election — including a former state GOP chairman, a U.S. Senate candidate for 2022 and two sitting state legislators. The other defendants are Mike Roman, who was Trump’s chief operations officer on Election Day, and four lawyers accused of masterminding an attempt to use false documents to persuade Congress not to certify Biden’s victory: John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis.
Trump himself was not charged but was called an unindicted co-conspirator.
The 11 people who had been appointed as Arizona’s Republican electors gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate stating that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and affirming that Trump carried the state. A one minute video The signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was then sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
Eastman, who strategized to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, became the first person charged in the Arizona fake voters case to go to trial Friday. He pleaded not guilty charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
Eastman made a brief statement outside the courthouse, saying the charges against him should never have been filed.
“I have had no communication with Arizona voters (and) no involvement in any Arizona election litigation or legislative hearings. And I am confident that with the laws faithfully enforced, I will be fully exonerated at the end of this process,” Eastman said. He declined to make further comments.
Indictments are scheduled for May 21 for 12 others charged in the case, including nine of the 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely stating that Trump won Arizona.
The Arizona indictment says Eastman encouraged GOP voters to vote in December 2020, unsuccessfully pressured state lawmakers to change the outcome of Arizona’s election and told then-Vice President Mike Pence that he might reject Democratic electors when the electoral votes were counted in Congress. on January 6, 2021.
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Associated Press writers Jacques Billeaud and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.
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News Source : apnews.com
