By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- One of the defendants in the "fake electors'' case wants Kris Mayes disqualified from pursuing it, even if she gets a new or renewed indictment.
That's because the attorney for Christina Bobb claims there is a financial link between the attorney general and a group that actually prepared a report for her on how to bring the charges and prosecute the case -- a link that the Attorney General's Office denies.
Thomas Jacobs contends that States United, through related organizations, indirectly provided $190,000 to a legal defense fund that Mayes had established to fight a court challenge by Republican Abe Hamadeh to her 2022 election. And Jacobs contends that was a payment to Mayes to convince her to indict his client, Bobb, and 17 others in connection on various charges related to what the Attorney General's Office says was a conspiracy to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"The issue is whether she proceeded in good faith with this indictment, with this prosecution, or if she was essentially a puppet to a national agenda that assisted her in getting her elected by paying her attorneys' fees for a challenge,'' Jacobs told Capitol Media Services.
The problem with all that, according to Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Klingerman, is that the connections that Thomas is claiming just don't exist.
He does not dispute that the Democratic Attorney Generals Association gave Mayes $50,000 before the defendants in the case were indicted, and another $150,000 after the indictments were handed up. Nor does Klingerman address Jacobs' statement that DAGA shares an address, president and executive director as the Progressive State Leaders Committee.
But any connection, he said, stops there.
"States United has never been a part or program of Progressive State Leaders Committee or any of the other organizations,'' Klingerman told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers who is handling the case. "And States United's formation as an independent legal entity occurred long before it entered into the May 2023 retainer agreement with the Attorney General's Office.''
Jacobs, however, said there's enough evidence to show a connection between Mayes and States United to raise questions about whether the attorney general is unbiased.
All this would normally be hashed out in front of Myers, with evidence and witnesses. But Thomas has been so far unable to get his day in court to present his claim of apparent bias -- and to ask to have Mayes disqualified.
By the time he asked Myers to disqualify Mayes, the judge already had tossed the indictment. Myers ruled that prosecutors did not provide all relevant information to the grand jurors.
That specifically includes failing to give them access to the federal Electoral Count Act of 1887, a statute that specifically addresses the possibility of competing electors from a state and how Congress must handle them.
And that goes to the heart of the defense: the claim by those indicted they were not trying to commit fraud but that they were preparing an "alternate slate'' of electors to send to Washington if it turned out that Trump actually outpolled Biden. And at the time, there actually was pending litigation over the election results.
Mayes has until Friday to decide whether to appeal Myers' decision to dismiss the indictment to the Arizona Supreme Court -- or start over again by presenting the evidence to a new grand jury. Thomas said he wants to make his arguments to Myers about why the AG should be disqualified from pursuing either option.
It is only if Mayes drops the case entirely that his claims of "a biased and conflicted Arizona Attorney General's Office'' become legally irrelevant.
Central to the claim about possible bias is a contract that Dan Barr, Mayes' chief deputy, signed in 2023 with States United Democracy Center. The contract said States United would advise the AG's office -- without charge -- with "developing legal strategies to ensure the integrity and security of elections.''
That was a month after Mayes, who had taken office in January, confirmed she would investigate the 11 Republicans who had signed a document claiming that Donald Trump had won the 2020 presidential race despite the fact that he lost to Joe Biden by 10,457 votes.
What States United produced two months after signing the contract, however, was much more specific: a detailed 47-page report focused solely on how to prosecute those involved in this case -- and only in this case.
A copy of the report, obtained by Capitol Media Services, shows that States United provided a timeline of the events leading up to the 11 Republicans submitting their false statement about the election results to Congress and claiming they were the true electors.
More to the point, it also included a list of charges that States United said could be brought against not just the GOP electors but also against others in Trump's orbit -- like Bobb -- who it said could be charged with being part of a conspiracy.
That report from States United listed six specific statutes it said were violated: forgery, tampering with a public record, criminal impersonation, presenting a false instrument for filing, fraudulent schemes and artifices, and conspiracy. It also went into great detail on why each applies in the case.
The final indictment by Mayes nine months later used three of those -- forgery, fraudulent schemes and artifices, and conspiracy -- and added a lower-level felony of fraudulent schemes and practices. All totaled, 18 were indicted; Trump himself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
What makes all that relevant, Thomas is telling Myers, are the donations to Mayes' legal defense by DAGA -- money he claims can be traced back to States United.
The first $50,000, he said, came around the time the grand jury investigation was opened. And another $150,000 donation was in July 2024, three months after the indictment against Bobb and others was handed up.
All that, Thomas noted, came after Barr signed the contract with States United. And that, he told Capitol Media Services, suggests impropriety.
"They make a payment,'' he said.
"And then she announces she's going after these guys and she gets an indictment,'' Thomas said. "And she gets another payment.''
In his separate legal filings, Thomas told Myers the payments "could have been made for lawful reasons.''
"But the timeline and the parties involved raises grave concerns about the impartiality of this prosecution, creating at the very least an appearance of impropriety,'' he said.
Klingerman, in his own legal filings, said Bobb presented no evidence, "nor could she,'' that States United had anything to do with the payments made by DAGA to help Mayes pay her legal bills. What that leaves, Klingermn said, is Bobb's "conjecture, innuendo, and her opinions concerning her investigation and prosecution.''
Finances aside, there's also the issue of what effect the volunteer work by States United had on the indictment of Bobb and the others.
Richie Taylor, Mayes' press aide, said what States United produced under its contract with the Attorney General's Office was "publicly compiled information.'' He said it relied on everything from news reports and information from the January 6th committee in Congress to lawsuits filed by those seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
But an examination of the report shows there was more involved than the historical narrative. And it's even more than States United spelling out for Mayes which Arizona laws could be used to prosecute those involved and making recommendations.
It also went on to describe potential defenses that those indicted could claim, including that they had no "unlawful intent'' but were relying on the advice of counsel. But the attorneys at States United pointed out that to the Attorney General's Office the defendants would have to waive their attorney-client privilege.
"That could expose potentially inculpatory communication to the public and the prosecution, which might deter defendants from even invoking the defense,'' the report said.
The report also went into detail on why Mayes' office could indict those involved even though the events dated back to late 2020, saying that, in general, the statute of limitations for these crimes is seven years. And it even provided Mayes with an answer if questions were raised about why she would be seeking indictments years after the events.
"Thorough investigations of complex cases take time,'' the report said. And then there's the fact that Mayes herself wasn't elected until 2022 and took office in early 2023.
And the 2023 report ended with a conclusion that the investigation -- and any prosecution that might result -- not only hold those those liable accountable but ensures "that others are deterred from carrying out similar violations in the future.''
That language was echoed in 2024 when Klingerman was in court arguing the charges were not political.
"Like all criminal prosecutions, it seeks to punish prior bad behavior, educate the public, and deter future efforts to do the same thing,'' he said.
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