A new book analyzes the fake electors’ scheme to overturn the 2020 election and predicts it will happen again in 2024.
David H. Moskowitz, a veteran trial lawyer and author, writes about fake and alternate electors in the seven swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Eighteen Arizona Republicans who signed documents falsely claiming that Donald Trump won the state in 2020 are facing state charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. Efforts to dismiss the case have been defeated.
● Loraine Pellegrino, a past president of the Ahwatukee, AZ, Republican Women, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.
● Kenneth Chesebro, a Georgia lawyer who masterminded the 2020 fake elector conspiracy, has also pleaded guilty to a felony and is a key witness for the prosecution in Arizona. He had met with Trump, who authorized the conspiracy.
The book describes how the scheme rested upon the ambiguity of federal, state, and local election laws. “The strategy not only clearly violated electoral law but also endorsed the fake electors in their criminal activity,” says Moskowitz, noting he expects Trump to try the same game plan again in 2024.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” says Moskowitz.
Following is an excerpt about Arizona from The Fake Elector Playbook: Lessons for the 2024 Election, by David H. Moskowitz
CHAPTER 8. ARIZONA (11 ELECTORAL VOTES)
THE READER HAS NOW MET the mastermind of the fake elector scheme—Kenneth Chesebro. The opportunistic Stefanie Lambert has been introduced. Both lawyers were involved in multiple states besides Michigan.
8.1 Chesebro’s role in Arizona
Chesebro played a direct role in the procedure followed by the alternate electors in the battleground states. After pleading guilty in Georgia, he has been providing information to the prosecutors in several other states. His contribution in Arizona has been very important and the indictment of the fake electors in Arizona sheds some light on what occurred in other states.
The effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Arizona started the day after the election, but the details of the fake elector plot have not been clear prior to the indictment of them on April 24, 2024. The indictment of the Arizona fake electors describes the sequence of events leading up to Arizona having fake electors.
On December 8, 2020, Chesebro and Jim Troupis (a Wisconsin attorney) were in contact with an unidentified Trump Campaign staffer. Their email stated that the Trump Campaign staffer “is in touch With [sic} White House, Arizona and PA. They are interested. I am copying them so they can work directly with you and link to the other States.”
On December 8, 2020, according to the indictment, Chesebro received a text message from an unidentified Wisconsin attorney (probably Troupis), which stated: “Heard Rudy et al are pushing this and you spoke to Arizona. Congratulations.” Chesebro responded with additional details of the plan in which he admitted that the Electoral Count Act “is politically problematic.” Chesebro added that “… if any state is uncertain, maybe a call from the President would be worthwhile. Sounds like he’s really hands on. Here is what happened in Arizona after the 2020 election.
8.2 Events in Arizona after the 2020 election
The fake electors scheme began in Arizona as early as November 4, 2020, the day after the election. There were a series of texts and memos contesting the outcome of the election and suggesting that Republicans could send their own slate of electors for certification on January 6 .
After the election, Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani called Rusty Bowers, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives in Arizona. They asked him to reverse the election results because it was a fraudulent election. Bowers was skeptical about their claim that there was fraud and asked for evidence.
This was followed by a meeting on December 1, 2020, in a conference room of the Arizona Senate. In attendance at this meeting were Giuliani and his associates, Speaker Bowers, and Senate President Karen Fann, also a Republican. Bowers was still unconvinced, but Fann seemed more receptive to doing something in response to the claim of a fraudulent election.
John Eastman called officials in Arizona on January 4, 2021, to request that the legislature decertify the legitimate electors who had already voted for Biden. When that request was denied, he said that he “didn’t know enough about facts on the ground,” but that they should decertify and “let the courts sort it out.” In another meeting concerning the Arizona election, Eastman made false statements of fraudulent activities and again requested that the legitimate electors be decertified.
During the weeks after the election, there was an effort by the two Chambers in Arizona to agree upon a course of action. Both Chambers were controlled by the Republican Party. Their focus and that of Trump and his allies was on Maricopa County. Trump lost that county by 45,100 votes, though he had won it by a similar margin in 2016.
Arizona’s three Republican Representatives in Congress sent a letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors before the election results were certified asking them to audit the voting in that county. The Board decided, however, to certify the votes. The Republican Governor Doug Ducey and Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs signed the official certificates confirming the Arizona election results for Biden. As Ducey was signing the certification, he received a phone call from the White House, which he silenced.
8.3 The fake electors in Arizona
The Republicans in Arizona, even though their candidate had lost the election, selected a group of fake electors. This was part of the elaborate scheme to overturn the election results. Congress received two certificates of the voting in Arizona, one from the official electors and one from the fake electors. One was legal and one was not legal.
At the base of the effort to overturn the results of the election is the claim that there was fraud in the election. Donald J. Trump did not prevail in Arizona. As stated earlier, he lost by a little more than 10,000 votes. He had won the election in Arizona in 2016 by approximately the same margin. Both before and after the 2020 election, he claimed that the voting in Arizona would be and was rigged and that he had won the election in Arizona by a wide margin.
On December 14, 2020, the members of the Electoral College met in their respective states and cast their votes in accordance with the popular vote in their state. Since the Democratic Party had won the popular vote in Arizona, the 11 electors selected by the Democrats voted for Biden and Harris. Their votes had been certified by Governor Ducey and Secretary of State Hobbs and sent to Congress .
8.6 Indictment of the fake electors
In contrast to the criminal activities of the three lawyers I have mentioned (Chesebro, Eastman, and Lambert), we find in Arizona a lawyer who is dedicated to ensuring honest elections. Attorney General Kris Mayes was elected by a margin of just 280 votes in 2022. She has vigorously investigated what happened in Arizona after the election. The activities of the fake electors are described in the indictment of them.
On April 24, 2024, an Arizona grand jury indicted the 11 Arizona fake electors and seven Trump campaign officials and lawyers (but not former president Donald Trump) . The indictment claims that the 18 people being charged were involved in the fake elector scheme. They were charged with felonies for fraud, forgery, and conspiracy.
In Chapters 4 and 5, I discussed the disclaimer that the Pennsylvania and New Mexico Republican electors placed in their voting certificates that led to the Republican electors in those two states being alternate electors rather than fake electors. In the case of the Arizona Republican electors, no disclaimer was placed in the voting certificate, so these electors qualified as fake electors rather than alternate electors.
The effort, according to the indictment, was not just to have an alternate slate in the event that Trump’s supporters might be able to prove there was election fraud. The goal was to pressure Vice President Pence and others to count the votes of the Trump electors rather than the votes of the valid electors. It was the desire to force Pence to use his “authority” to declare that Trump won the election that was the motivation for the filing by the fake electors of the complaint in the Gohmert case.
The defendants in the Arizona fake elector case include the following:
• Mark Meadows (former Trump chief of staff in 2020)
• John Eastman (Trump attorney, professor, and law school dean)
• Rudy Giuliani (Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor)
• Jenna Ellis (Trump attorney and a conservative media personality)
• Christina Bobb (former attorney for the Trump campaign and current election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee who is accused in the indictment of making “false claims of widespread election fraud in Arizona and in six other states”)
• Mike Roman (Trump Campaign official)
• Boris Epshteyn (Trump Campaign official who is still one of his advisors)
The defendants also include the 11 Arizona fake electors. This then raises the question of who are the fake electors in Arizona?
8.7 Describing the Arizona fake electors
The 11 Arizona fake electors are political activists, and they are similar in terms of their activities to the electors chosen in other states. The defendants in the Arizona case have been described as follows:
• State senator who is the leader of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Another state senator who is a member of the Arizona Freedom Caucus
• Former Arizona Republican Party chair (this is a reference to Kelli Ward, who will be discussed below)
• Husband of the former Arizona Republican Party chair (Michael Ward)
• Republican national committeeman and Turning Point USA executive
• Republican who has been active in local politics for a decade
• Former chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee
• Former chair of the Gila County Republican Party
• Former president of the Ahwatukee Republican women
• Former executive director of the AZGOP
• Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2022.
The indictment states:
“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as president on November 3, 2020. Unwilling to accept this fact, defendants and unindicted co-conspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep unindicted co-conspirator 1 [undoubtedly, a reference to former president Donald J. Trump] in office against the will of Arizona voters. This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”
8.8 The counts in the indictment
The indictment includes nine felony counts for the following:
• Conspiracy (Count 1)
• Fraudulent scheme and artifices (Count 2)
• Fraudulent schemes and practices (Count 3) and
• Forgery (Counts 4 to 9).
The Count 1 Conspiracy charge consists of conspiracy to commit the crimes of fraudulent schemes and artifices, forgery, changing vote of elector by corrupt means or inducement, tampering with a public record, and presentment of false instrument for filing.
8.9 The meeting of the fake electors
When the pressure campaign was unsuccessful, the fake elector plot unfolded. As early as November 4, 2020, the defendants plotted to set up their own slate of electors. The indictment asserts that “the Arizona Republican electors met on December 14, 2020, at the Arizona Republican Party Headquarters, posting a picture to twitter.com.” At this meeting, the fake electors voted for Trump and Pence. At the time they did so, some of their legal challenges were still pending, but they were all unsuccessful, and none of these lawsuits would have changed the outcome of the election.
Even though the lawsuits claiming fraud in the election were unsuccessful, the fake electors:
“obtained a benefit under Arizona law by creating the opportunity for Pence to reject the legitimate certified Democratic elector votes for Biden-Harris and declare Unindicted Coconspirator 1 [Donald J. Trump] the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.”
8.10 The crime in Arizona
According to the indictment, the defendants and unindicted co-conspirators exerted pressure upon three different groups of election officials. These included the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, members of the Arizona Legislature, and former Governor Doug Ducey.
The defendants are accused of raising false claims of widespread voter fraud in Arizona to pressure election officials to change the outcome of the election. The effort was unsuccessful because the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Secretary of State, and Governor certified Arizona’s election.
“Republican Presidential elector Defendants then voted for President Donald Trump and Vice President Michael Pence on December 14, 2020, falsely claiming to be the ‘duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States from the State of Arizona.’”
The indictment outlines the strategies that the defendants were pursuing in attempting to pressure Vice President Pence to declare Trump the winner of the election or delay the proceeding and have individual state legislatures designate who the electors would be, or have Congress select the fake electors from Arizona and six other battleground states. The defendants deceived the public by claiming that these schemes were legal. To establish this point, the indictment, at some length, provides the background of presidential election laws.
There are very detailed descriptions of the activities of the defendants in pressuring election officials to participate in trying to overturn the results of the election. I have already discussed some of these activities. Since the defendants, and the unindicted co-conspirators and all the other Trump supporters, were never able to prove outcome-determinative election fraud. All of their efforts, including the riot on January 6, 2021, failed in the plan to deny Joe Biden the presidency.
In addition to the actions of the individual fake elector defendants being described, the actions taken by the various attorneys who were involved in promoting the fake elector scheme are also detailed (five attorneys are mentioned). The other defendants are described as the Director of Election Day Operations for the Trump Campaign and Trump’s Chief of Staff. The unindicted co-conspirators are described but not named. Trump is unindicted, unnamed Co-Conspirator 1.
8.11 Organizing the Arizona fake electors
After some additional discussion between Arizona officials and Chesebro, the indictment identifies Kelli Ward, one of the fake electors, as the organizer of the Arizona fake electors. Some of the Arizona officials suggested that “it could appear treasonous for the AZ electors to vote on Monday if there is no pending court proceeding that might, eventually, lead to the electors being ratified as the legitimate ones.”
Kelli Ward was concerned that the Arizona fake electors would not be voting in the state capitol building, but Chesebro reassured her that this would not be a problem. Hence, the Arizona Republican electors met at the Republican Party Headquarters to cast their votes.
This last point is central to the criminal nature of the fake elector scheme. Without the cover of a pending lawsuit that could be outcome-determinative, the fake electors should have known that they were committing a crime. The indictment refers to comments by the defendants that claim that their actions were legally justifiable. None of their arguments is convincing.
8.12 The conclusion in the indictment
The indictment concludes with the following:
“Based on the above, and other information reviewed, Defendants and their unindicted coconspirators deceived the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency, to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters and deprive Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted. By sending in fake electoral votes, they obtained a benefit under Arizona law by creating the opportunity for Pence to reject the legitimate certified Democratic elector votes for Biden-Harris and declare Unindicted Coconspirator 1 the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.”
While I have no reason to believe that there was tampering with the voting machines in Arizona, there was a forensic audit. Some of the participants in arranging for this audit are individuals and companies whom we met while studying what happened in other states.
Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano played a role in the Pennsylvania alternate elector scheme, the tampering in Fulton County, and he was also active in Arizona. We know about his efforts because Stefanie Lambert (the Michigan election fraud attorney) and Doug Logan (the CEO of Cyber Ninjas who was in charge of the Arizona audit of the 2020 election) exchanged more than 2,400 text messages while the audit was being conducted. These texts are in the stack of 39,000 messages that Logan has released in response to a public records lawsuit.
The Arizona audit has cost about $5.9 million. Cyber Ninjas was hired to do a hand count of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County. They in turn hired Wake, the small company in Pennsylvania that was involved in the Fulton County, PA. tampering case, to do the counting. Sidney Powell, one of the attorneys who pled guilty in Georgia, was involved in fundraising for this effort. Stefanie Lambert also participated in the Arizona audit.
NBC News reported on July 13, 2023:
“Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, did not investigate the electors’ scheme, but he had agents in the attorney general’s office spend more than 10,000 hours looking into GOP claims of voting irregularities and allegations of illegal voting, Mayes’ office said in a news release this year.”
In other words, there are two different approaches to ensuring election security, and the difference between the methods of these two attorneys general are as far apart as the North Pole and the South Pole.
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