FILE – Mark Meadows speaks with reporters at the White House, Oct. 21, 2020, in Washington. Meadows, chief of staff for former President Donald Trump, was among those indicted Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in an Arizona election interference case. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Charges have formally been made public against Mark Meadows, the onetime chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, in the expansive fake electors case now underway in Arizona.
Trump is not charged in Arizona but is considered an unindicted co-conspirator.
As Law&Crime recently reported, 18 fake electors in the state were indicted by a grand jury on April 24 for their alleged efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election. Though several Republicans were named directly in the fraud and forgery indictment including, among others, leaders of the state’s Republican party and two incumbent state lawmakers, some of those charged had their identities redacted, including Meadows and Trump’s former attorney also facing indictment in Georgia, Rudy Giuliani.
F0rmal charges have still not been confirmed for Giuliani in Arizona.
The Associated Press reported first on Wednesday that the state’s attorney’s general office confirmed Meadows was being charged with nine felony counts and has been served.
An attorney for Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment to Law&Crime on Friday.
Those charged with trying to pass off bogus elector slates in 2020 and named openly when the indictment first went public included Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward, her husband Michael Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, and Gregory Safsten.
The identities of some individuals whose names were redacted was not difficult to piece together given the indictment’s description of them. In addition to Meadows and Giuliani, they appeared to include current Trump campaign lawyer Boris Epshteyn and a bevy of former campaign lawyers included Jenna Ellis — who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in Georgia — Trump’s onetime lawyer Christina Bobb, former campaign aide Mike Roman, and John Eastman, a retired law professor who pushed out a memo outlining what steps to take to keep Trump in office despite his electoral defeat. Eastman is also charged in the racketeering indictment alongside Trump in Georgia.
The reason they were not named openly is because they had not yet been formally served.
Per the Arizona indictment, Meadows was described as:
“[REDACTED] was Unindicted Coconspirator 1’s Chief of Staff in 2020. He worked with members of the Trump Campaign to coordinate and implement the false Republican electors’ votes in Arizona and six other states. [REDACTED] was involved in the many efforts to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in power despite his defeat at the polls.
The nine felony charges Meadows faces in Arizona include conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, and fraudulent schemes and practices. The remaining charges are felony forgery allegations.
Prosecutors say Meadows and others engaged in a scheme where Trump’s allies held themselves out to be “duly elected and qualified electors” for Arizona, thereby deceiving the citizens of the state by claiming that only their votes were legal.
“In reality, defendants intended that their false votes for Trump-Pence would encourage Pence to rejected the Biden-Harris votes on Jan. 6, 2021, regardless of the outcome of the legal challenge.”
This only failed because then-Vice President Mike Pence did accept electoral votes for now-President Joe Biden.
In Georgia, Meadows faces just one charge and sought to dismiss it a month ago. He argues he has immunity from state prosecution under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued Meadows has already failed to convince the courts on at least two separate occasions that he is being prosecuted in the state for his official duties as Trump’s former chief of staff.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has not yet rendered a decision.
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