Charges revealed against a former Trump aide and 4 lawyers in Arizona fake electors case

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities revealed Friday the conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges filed against an ex-aide of former President Donald Trump and four attorneys in Arizona’s fake elector case, but the names of former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani remained blacked out. The Arizona attorney general’s office released a copy of the indictment that revealed nine felony counts had been filed against Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations, and attorneys John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis. The lawyers were accused of organizing an attempt to use fake documents to persuade Congress not to certify Joe Biden’s victory.

The office had announced Wednesday that conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges had been filed against 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. They included a former state GOP chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers.

The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not released on Wednesday because they had not yet been served with the indictments. They were readily identifiable based on descriptions of the defendants, but the charges against them were not clear. Roman, Epshteyn, Bobb and Ellis declined to comment, did not respond or could not be reached. Representatives of Eastman, Meadows and Giuliani have attacked the prosecution as political.

Trump himself was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.

With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election.

Those charged in the Arizona case are scheduled for their initial court hearing on May 21.

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.

Jacques Billeaud, The Associated Press