An Arizona grand jury has indicted former Donald Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani along with 16 others in an election interference case.
The indictment released Wednesday names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. It shows seven other defendants whose names were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the charges.
The Associated Press was able to determine the identities of the unnamed defendants based on their descriptions in the indictment.
One is described as an attorney “who was often identified as the Mayor” and spread false allegations of election fraud, a description that clearly describes Giuliani. Another is described as Trump’s “ chief of staff in 2020,” which describes Meadows.
“I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a video released by her office. “It’s too important.”
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump as the winner.
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