Why hasn't "Unindicted Coconspirator 1" been indicted?
"Trump is described as 'Unindicted Coconspirator 1' in the indictment."
Trump’s 2020 'fake electors' charged with state crimes in Arizona (nbcnews.com)
The indictments also appear to include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, based on descriptions in the document released Wednesday.
April 24, 2024, 4:10 PM PDT / Updated April 24, 2024, 4:55 PM PDT
By Vaughn Hillyard and Dareh Gregorian
A state grand jury in Arizona on Wednesday indicted so-called "fake electors" who backed then-President Donald Trump in 2020, as well as key Trump aides, after a sprawling investigation into the alleged efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election in the state.
One month after the 2020 election, 11 Trump supporters convened at the Arizona GOP’s headquarters in Phoenix to sign a certificate claiming to be Arizona’s 11 electors to the Electoral College, though Biden won the state by 10,457 votes and state officials certified his electors. The state Republican Party documented the signing of the certificate in a social media post and sent it to Congress and the National Archives.
Among those charged is Kelli Ward, who served as chair of the Arizona GOP during the 2020 election and the immediate aftermath. She tweeted on Jan. 6, 2021, after the attack on the U.S. Capitol: “Congress is adjourned. Send the elector choice back to the legislatures.” Ward was a consistent propagator of false claims that Arizona’s election results were rigged.
Others charged were: state legislators Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman; Michael Ward, Kelli Ward’s husband; Tyler Bowyer, the Republican National Committee's Arizona committeeman and the chief operating officer of the Trump-aligned Turning Point USA; Greg Safsten, the former Arizona GOP executive director; former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon; Robert Montgomery, the former head of the Cochise County GOP; and Republican Party activists Samuel Moorhead, Nancy Cottle and Loraine Pellegrino.
Trump is described as "Unindicted Coconspirator 1" in the indictment. The document includes redacted names of other people who have been charged in the case but have not yet been served. Two of them appear to be former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump campaign and White House official Mike Roman, per the descriptions in the indictment.
Another passage appears to describe attorney Kenneth Chesebro, one of the planners of the alleged scheme, as an unindicted coconspirator. Chesebro pleaded guilty last year in Georgia to conspiracy charges brought against him, Trump and 17 other people in the state. He is also believed to be one of the unidentified co-conspirators special counsel Jack Smith described in his federal election interference indictment of Trump last year.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, led the investigation. She won her election to be the state’s chief prosecutor in November 2022, replacing Republican Mark Brnovich, a onetime ally of Trump who later earned his scorn for not substantiating his claims of election fraud in the state.
"We conducted a thorough and professional investigation over the past 13 months into the fake electors scheme in our state," Mayes said in a video announcing the charges. "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. But as I've stated before, and we'll say here again, today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined."
The Arizona charges are the latest example of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election sprouting into legal cases during his 2024 bid to retake office. |
