John Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University’s law school and an advisor to former President Donald Trump, was indicted by an Arizona grand jury for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Eleven Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump beat Joe Biden in Arizona in the election also were indicted, as were six others who were not named.
Eastman’s name was redacted from the indictment, as was former Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani’s, but they are identifiable in the indictment.
They were charged Wednesday with conspiracy, fraud and forgery, marking the fourth state to bring charges against “fake electors.”
Trump was not indicted but was referred to throughout the indictment as “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”
Eastman was among seven who were indicted but had their names blacked out by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. Her office said the names will be released after those people are served with the charges.
The description of a defendant that matched Eastman read, in part, that the person “was an attorney who encouraged the Republican electors to vote on December 14, 2020, and spread false claims of widespread election fraud. He also pressured the legislature in Arizona and six other states to change the outcome of the election. For example, on January 4, 2021, pushed then-Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers to convene a Special Session to decertify Arizona’s presidential electors, telling him to ‘just do it and let the court sort it out.’”
Eastman has been quoted by Bowers as telling him that.
Eastman has raised more than $750,000 to help his legal defense on the site GiveSendGo.
He also casts himself as a victim of “lawfare” by an unhinged left, and complained that his bank accounts at Bank of America and USAA were closed without explanation. “I strongly suspect that BofA’s and USAA’s decisions to cancel our accounts was a reflection of their increasingly “woke” corporate ideology against those who hold conservative political views or, as in my case, those who represented a client who is despised by our nation’s ruling elite. If that is what is going on, it could be a big problem for them,” he wrote on the site on April 23.
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.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 Republicans participated in the certificate signing.
The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.
In December, a Nevada grand jury indicted six Republicans on felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument in connection with false election certificates. They have pleaded not guilty.
Michigan’s Attorney General in July filed felony charges that included forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery against 16 Republican fake electors. One had charges dropped after reaching a cooperation deal, and the 15 remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Three fake electors also have been charged in Georgia alongside Trump and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the results. They have pleaded not guilty.
In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans who posed as electors settled a civil lawsuit, admitting their actions were part of an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. There is no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.
Trump also was indicted in August in federal court over the fake electors scheme. The indictment states that when Trump was unable to persuade state officials to illegally swing the election, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a slate of fake electors in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to sign certificates falsely stating he, not Biden, had won their states.
In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors added a caveat saying the election certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, conducted an investigation of the 2020 election, but the fake elector allegations were not part of that examination, according to Mayes’ office.
In another election-related case brought by Mayes’ office, two Republican officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed canvassing the 2022 general election results face felony charges. A grand jury indicted Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby in November on one count each of conspiracy and interference with an election officer. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Republicans facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
There was no immediate response to phone messages seeking comment that were left Wednesday with Jacob Hoffman, Kelli Ward, Michael Ward, James Lamon and Tyler Bowyer.
Staff writers Teri Sforza and Todd Harmonson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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