Arizona’s attorney general says former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been served an indictment in the state’s fake elector case, alongside 17 other defendants, for his role in an attempt to overturn former president Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes posted the news regarding the Trump-aligned lawyer on social media late Friday.
“The final defendant was served moments ago. @RudyGiuliani nobody is above the law,” Mayes wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The attorney general’s spokesperson, Richie Taylor, said in an email to The Associated Press on Saturday that Giuliani faces the same charges as the other defendants, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
His political adviser, Ted Goodman, confirmed Giuliani was served Friday night after his 80th birthday celebration as he was walking to the car.
“We look forward to full vindication soon,” Goodman said in a statement on Saturday.
Giuliani ‘pressured’ legislators, indictment alleges
The indictment alleges that Giuliani “pressured” Arizona legislators and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to change the outcome of Arizona’s election and that he was responsible for encouraging Republican electors in Arizona and six other contested states to vote for Trump.
Taylor said an unredacted copy of the indictment will be released Monday and that Giuliani is expected to appear in court Tuesday unless he is granted a delay by the court.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, is among the others who have been indicted in the case.
Neither Meadows nor Giuliani were named in the redacted grand jury indictment released earlier because they had not been served with it, but they were readily identifiable based on descriptions in the document. The Arizona attorney general’s office said Wednesday that Meadows had been served and confirmed that he was charged with the same counts as the other named defendants, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump is facing criminal charges for the fourth time, after a Georgia grand jury issued a sweeping indictment accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and of running a ‘criminal enterprise.’ Andrew Chang explains all of the charges, and why the latest are so significant.
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.
Giuliani was also indicted last year by a grand jury in Georgia, where he is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers there to ignore the will of voters and illegally appoint pro-Trump electoral college electors.
Among the 16 other defendants are 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to the U.S. Congress falsely declaring that Trump won in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election — including a former state GOP chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers.
The other defendants are Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of election day operations, and four lawyers accused of organizing an attempt to use fake documents to persuade Congress not to certify Biden’s victory: John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis.
Trump himself was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.
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