A number of Donald Trump advisors during the 2020 election — including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mark Meadows — were indicted in Arizona on Wednesday, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Trump’s behalf, the New York Times reports. Giuliani is Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer; Meadows was the White House chief of staff at the time of the 2020 election. One of Trump’s top legal strategists, Boris Epshteyn, was also among those indicted, a complication for Trump’s defense in the criminal trial that began this week in Manhattan over hush money payments made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.
The indictment includes conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges, related to alleged attempts by those charged to overturn the 2020 election results. Arizona is the fourth swing state to bring an elections case involving the activities of the Trump campaign in 2020, but only the second after Georgia to go beyond the fake electors whom the campaign deployed in swing states lost by Trump. The former president was also named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Arizona case. “I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough, and I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all,” Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, said in a recorded statement. “But as I have stated before and will say here again today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined. It’s too important.”