PHOENIX -- 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 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 May 21.
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona's Republican electors met Dec. 14, 2020, in Phoenix 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.
THE CHARGES
A Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, Roman was charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery. He was also charged with several conspiracy counts related to the Republican elector meeting and the filing of the elector certificate in Georgia.
Roman has pleaded innocent to the charges in Georgia. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer in Arizona.
Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University's law school in Southern California, wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the electoral certification during a joint session of Congress using the slates of Republican electors from the battleground states.
He's charged in Arizona with conspiracy, fraud and forgery. He's also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal indictment, which quotes his remarks at the Jan. 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington.
The charges against him in Georgia include racketeering and conspiracy. He has pleaded innocent to those charges, and his lawyer Charles Burnham said he's innocent of the charges in Arizona, as well.
Bobb is a lawyer and conservative media personality charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
She worked closely with Giuliani as he tried to persuade Arizona lawmakers to block the certification of the election results. She later raised money for a discredited audit of the election results in Maricopa County and covered the spectacle for One America News Network.
As a lawyer for Trump, Bobb signed a letter stating that a "diligent search" for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government before an FBI search revealed dozens of protected documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
She was recently tapped to oversee "election integrity" efforts at the Republican National Committee.
Asked about Bobb's role with the RNC, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung accused Democrats of "weaponization of the legal system."
A longtime Trump aide, Epshteyn was charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery.
He's a lawyer who has been by Trump's side for some of the former president's own court appearances, including Thursday and Friday in New York.
Epshteyn was a principal surrogate in the 2016 presidential campaign, making frequent television appearances.
He briefly served as a senior White House adviser before becoming an analyst for Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Ellis faces conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges. It wasn't immediately clear whether she had a lawyer who could comment on those charges.
She was charged in the Georgia indictment after she appeared with Giuliani at a December 2020 hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which allegations of election fraud were made.
She pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings after reaching a deal with prosecutors. She wasn't charged in connection with the Republican electors' efforts in Georgia.
Charges in Arizona against Meadows are not publicly known. He was also identified by a Michigan state investigator as an unindicted co-conspirator. He was charged in the sweeping Georgia racketeering indictment, but not in connection with the Republican elector meeting.
Among other things, he participated in a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which the then-president urged the elections official to help "find" the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state.
His attorney, George Terwilliger, referred to Wednesday's indictment in Arizona as a "blatantly political and politicized accusation and will be contested and defeated."
Meadows now works for the Conservative Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that describes his role as leading "strategic initiatives on Capitol Hill, with other partner organizations, and with grassroots activists across the country."
Racketeering and conspiracy are among the charges Giuliani faces in Georgia.
In Michigan, a state investigator has testified that Giuliani is among several high-profile unindicted co-conspirators in a case against Republicans who signed elector certificates falsely saying Trump had won the state.
He's also an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal indictment in Washington, which cites comments he made at the "Stop the Steal" rally before the Capitol riot.
His spokesman, Ted Goodman, said in a statement Thursday that the "continued weaponization of our justice system should concern every American as it does permanent, irrevocable harm to the country."
Information for this article was contributed by Kate Brumback and Jonathan J. Cooper of The Associated Press.
Former One America News Network anchor Christina Bobb speaks at a Blake Masters election integrity event at American Way Smokehouse on April 30, 2022, in Chandler, Ariz. The Arizona attorney general's office released a copy of the indictment Friday, April 26, 2024, that revealed conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges were filed against former Trump aide Mike Roman 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. (Megan Mendoza/The Arizona Republic via AP)
Boris Epshteyn, an aide to former President Donald Trump, returns to the courtroom after a lunch recess during Trump's trial at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Friday, April 26, 2024. The Arizona attorney general's office released a copy of the indictment Friday, April 26, 2024, that revealed conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges were filed against former Trump aide Mike Roman 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. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Jenna Ellis, a member of President Donald Trump's legal team, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. The Arizona attorney general's office released a copy of the indictment Friday, April 26, 2024, that revealed conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges were filed against former Trump aide Mike Roman 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. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
