Arizona Supreme Court won't overturn judge's ruling to send 'fake elector' case back to grand jury

The Arizona Supreme Court shot down Attorney General Kris Mayes’ request to review a judge’s decision that sent the so-called fake electors case back to square one.

Mayes brought the criminal case in 2024 against a host of local and national Republicans accused of sending fraudulent documents to Washington, D.C., falsely claiming President Donald Trump won Arizona in 2020, part of a scheme to undermine former President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Last year, Maricopa County Judge Sam Myers sent the case back to the grand jury.

The judge ruled prosecutors should have provided more information to the grand jury that indicted the defendants, including Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, state Sen. Jake Hoffman and former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.

Hoffman praised the decision, accusing Mayes of engaging in a "naked political prosecution."

"As I've said since day one, the truth is on my side and I will be vindicated by the judicial process. Today marks yet another in a long string of embarrassing losses for Mayes' tenure as AZAG," he said in a statement provided by his attorney Timothy La Sota.

The defendants are now calling on Mayes to drop the case.

“We are very pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling today,” said Stephen Binhak, an attorney for defendant Tyler Bowyer, an executive with Turning Point USA’s political arm. “We think the Supreme Court got it exactly right. We think the state Attorney General’s Office should end this case now.”

But Richie Taylor, a spokesman for Mayes, said that is not going to happen.

“The Arizona Attorney General’s Office will return this case to the grand jury,” Taylor said in a statement. He declined to comment further on the case.

The state of play

Myers found prosecutors didn’t adequately explain a federal law — the Electoral Count Act that dates back to 1887 — to the grand jury.

Attorneys for the defendants provided a theory arguing that federal law provides a legal pathway for officials to submit an “alternate” slate of electors to Congress if they believe the results of an election are in question.

They argued the defendants, who were selected by the state Republican Party to cast Arizona’s 11 electoral votes in the event Trump won, were simply providing that “alternate” slate in the event lawsuits challenging the results of the election were successful.

Prosecutors with the Attorney General’s Office had argued that the grand jury was informed, because Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump attorney accused by a congressional committee of coordinating the scheme, had testified before the grand jury about the defendants’ legal theory.

But Myers sided with the defense, finding that even though grand jurors received some information about the Electoral Count Act, prosecutors should have given them the actual text of the law.

Mayes appealed the ruling, but a state appeals court declined to hear the case.

And now the Arizona Supreme Court also declined to weigh in.

Mayes’ decision to bring the case back to a grand jury to seek a new indictment means the case is returning to square one with just seven months left in her first term in office.

The decision to stick with the case is likely to remain a top issue for both Mayes and her Republican opponents as she seeks re-election.

Both Senate President Warren Petersen and Rodney Glassman, the two Republicans vying to take on Mayes in the upcoming general election have accused Mayes of engaging in politically-motivated “lawfare,” citing the fake electors case as an example.