AZ fake electors will be off the hook after '26 election if AG loses

By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- The 16 remaining defendants in the "fake electors'' case will be off the legal hook if the litigation drags on beyond the 2026 election and Kris Mayes loses the race.
All three Republicans running for state attorney general are saying if they are elected they will drop the charges of fraud, conspiracy, and forgery related to documents submitted to Congress after the 2020 election claiming Donald Trump had outpolled Joe Biden in Arizona despite official results to the contrary.
And, at the rate the case is going, it is a real possibility -- and a likelihood under certain scenarios -- that there will be no final outcome by Jan. 1, 2027 when a new term begins.
"Drop it,'' Senate President Warren Petersen said when asked what he would do with the case if he wins the August primary and then defeats Mayes.
"It clearly is a witch hunt,'' he said. "I won't use the office to persecute my political enemies.''
The same from Rodney Glassman.
"On my first day in the attorney general's office this madness ends,'' he said in social media posts, also using the phrase "with hunt indictments designed to harass and silence President Trump's supporters.''
And a day after entering the race last week, Greg Roeberg posted that Mayes "continues to waste valuable resources going after political opponents.''
"On Day One, I'll restore the AG's office to its true purpose -- serving the people of Arizona,'' wrote Roeberg who also has boasted about being a campaign attorney for Trump and even posted a shot of him at Trump Tower in 2016.
All this becomes relevant because even Richie Taylor, an aide to Mayes, acknowledged that the earliest the case could go to trial is next fall. And that doesn't even consider the likelihood that if Mayes obtains a conviction, one or more of the defendants is likely to appeal.
More to the point, there is no guarantee that Mayes will get a second term. She barely squeaked into office in 2022 with a 280-vote edge over Republican nominee Abe Hamadeh.
But Mayes said she will continue to pursue the charges, regardless of what might happen in the 2026 general election -- and regardless of what a potential successor might do. She said the decision is not about politics.
"It is about enforcing the law and upholding the fundamental integrity of our election system,'' she told Capitol Media Services. And Mayes said that any decision to drop it -- by her or anyone who might succeed her -- would have implications.
"If we fail to hold accountable those who sought to overturn the legal winner of Arizona's electoral votes, we risk future manipulation,'' she said.
Nor does she believe that the 2026 election will be a referendum on whether she should have brought the charges in the first place. Instead, Mayes said, she believes voters will look at other issues, ranging from antitrust charges over rent price fixing to fighting the Trump administration in federal court over cuts to state funding.
In the meantime, her case against the electors and those she says conspired with them remains stalled.
The April 2024 indictment says that 11 Republicans signed a document after the 2020 election declaring that Trump had won the popular vote in Arizona despite the final tally showing he had been defeated by Biden by 10,457 votes. That document was sent to Congress, a move that the indictment contends was part of a national plan to throw the results of the race into doubt and have federal lawmakers declare that Trump had won reelection.
It also says that seven others aligned with Trump, including attorneys and Trump's chief of staff, had hatched the plan. And the president himself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
One elector, Loraine Pellegino, has since pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of filing a false instrument and was placed on probation. And Jenna Ellis, one of Trump's attorneys, had the charges against her dropped after she promised to cooperate with prosecutors.
The case against the remaining 16 came to a halt when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers threw out the indictment, concluding that members of the grand jury were not given a key piece of information: Am 1887 federal law dealing with how Congress should deal with multiple slates of electors from any state.
Myers said that information could have caused grand jurors to reject the state's claim that the 11 Republicans who signed a document saying they were the true electors despite the actual returns of the 2020 presidential race were trying to commit fraud and conspiracy.
Unable to get that ruling set aside by the Court of Appeals, Mayes is now trying to convince a majority of the justices on the high court to reinstate the case.
But it's not that simple.
Even if the Supreme Court agrees -- something that wouldn't occur until next year, there are things that have to happen before any testimony can be presented.
The first is resolving a claim by defendants that Mayes, in bringing the charges, was violating the state's Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation law. That statute allows trial judges to throw out a case -- before any actual evidence related to the crimes charged is produced -- if they conclude that a public official has used the legal system to punish and prevent speech on political issues.
Myers already issued a preliminary ruling that there appears to be enough evidence to believe the indictment could be seen as an attack on what is "at least in part some arguably lawful speech.''
There never was a final ruling on that, however, because Myers had dismissed the indictment. If the charges are restored, that issue must be resolved before the case can go forward, including any possible appeals.
Also pending is a claim by Christina Bobb, one of Trump's attorneys who was indicted, that Mayes and her entire office should be disqualified from pursuing the case.
Bobb contends that money Mayes received from the Democratic Attorney Generals Association for her legal defense fund was an improper payment so Mayes would pursue the charges against her and the other defendants. And Bobb even contends there is a financial link between DAGA and States United, an organization that prepared a 47-page legal analysis for Mayes ahead of any charges being brought of how to pursue the case.
All of that is disputed by the Attorney General's Office.
Here, too, appeals of whatever Myers rules are possible, further delaying the case.
The timing gets even more problematic if the Supreme Court does not reinstate the original indictment.
At that point Mayes would have to convene an entirely new grand jury and present all the same evidence she did the first time to get a renewed set of charges.
And that, in turn, starts the legal process all over again -- starting with the three months it took the first grand jury to hear all the evidence and issue its now-voided indictment.
--
On X, Bluesky, and Threads: @azcapmedia