Former President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been revealed to face the same conspiracy, fraud, and forgery charges as other defendants in Arizona's fake elector case. The Arizona attorney general's office confirmed that Meadows, although not initially named in the grand jury indictment, has now been served with nine felony counts.
Attorney George Terwilliger, representing Meadows, has yet to comment on the charges. He previously denounced the Arizona indictment as a politically motivated accusation that will be contested.
Arizona now marks the fourth state where associates of the former president have been charged with spreading false claims of voter fraud in relation to the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won by over 10,000 votes. Notably, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump-aligned attorney, also faces impending charges in the case.
While Trump himself has not been charged, he was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the matter. The case involves 18 defendants, including 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely declared Trump's victory in the state to Congress. Among the defendants are a former state GOP chair, a U.S. Senate candidate, and two current state lawmakers.
The defendants, who were nominated as Arizona's Republican electors, convened in Phoenix in December 2020 to sign a certificate claiming Trump's victory. The signing ceremony was captured in a video posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party but was ultimately disregarded by Congress and the National Archives.
Other individuals implicated in the case include Mike Roman, Trump's director of Election Day operations, and four attorneys accused of orchestrating a scheme to use fraudulent documents to sway Congress against certifying Biden's win: John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn, and Jenna Ellis.
