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April 25 (UPI) -- A grand jury in Arizona has indicted 18 Republican allies of former President Donald Trump, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, on charges of attempting to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election. The nine-count indictment, announced Wednesday, focuses on an alleged scheme to keep Trump president through the use of fake electors, which was an integral part of his plan to remain in the White House.
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Several attorneys general have been investigating the fake elector scheme since November 2020, with four states now bringing forward indictments.
The court document announced Wednesday names 11 Republicans accused of masquerading as the state's presidential electors, despite Joe Biden winning the state by more than 10,000 votes.
According to the indictment, the law prohibits presidential electors to vote for anyone other than the certified winner of the election, and the alleged fake electors intended to cast false votes for Trump to encourage then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden's legitimate electors for the state.
When Arizona's false electors were combined with those of six other states, the defendants sought to force Pence to either declare Trump the outright winner of the election, delay the proceeding and have individual state legislatures determine their electors or have Congress determine the validity of the election results in the states for the then-outgoing president, the court document states.
The name's of seven other defendants are redacted in the indictment as they have yet been served, Giuliani and Meadows included.
However, their identities are clear.
The document states the scheme was "to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona's voters," meaning Trump.
It also points to Giuliani, as it states one of the defendants was a lawyer to Unindicted Co-conspirator 1 "who was often identified as 'The Mayor.'" Giuliani was Trumps' former personal lawyer and is a former mayor of New York City.
Meadows is identified through his position as chief of White House staff in 2020.
"We're here because justice demands an answer to the efforts that the defendants and other unindicted co-conspirators allegedly took to undermine the will of Arizona's voters during the 2020 presidential election," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayers said in a recorded statement.
"The defendants charged by the state grand jury allegedly schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency. Whatever they're reasoning was, the plot to violate the law must be answered for."
She said if the scheme had succeeded, Arizonans would have been deprived of their right to have their vote count.
The charges include felony counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy.
The indictment states that following the election, the 11 Republican electors, plotting with electors from other states, voted for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a false document claiming to be the "duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States from the State of Arizona."
A brief video of the meeting remains on the Facebook page of the Arizona Republican Party.
The signed false document was then filed by the Arizona Republican electors with the archivist of the United States and Congress.
Mayers explained the defendants lied to Arizona voters by stating their votes were contingent only on a legal challenge.
"The defendants intended the false votes for Trump and Pence would encourage Vice President Pence to reject the certified Biden-Harris electors' votes regardless of the result of any legal challenge," she said.
"As you will recall, none of the legal challenges filed in Arizona state and federal courts regarding the 2020 election were remotely successful."
The scheme came to an end on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress certified Biden's election win and which Pence accepted.
Indictments in the alleged fake elector scheme have also been filed in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada.
