Trump pardon doesn't affect Arizona's 'fake electors' prosecution

President Donald Trump has issued federal pardons to everyone connected with his various efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss — but that won’t help the 18 people who were indicted in Arizona on state charges.

Attorney General Kris Mayes has said the 18 schemed to have the votes of 11 “fake electors’’ from Arizona counted that year instead of the real ones.

But the Trump pardon does come as Mayes has less than two weeks to decide whether to renew the Arizona case after the grand jury indictment against the 18 was dismissed. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers said Mayes’ prosecutors did not present all the relevant information to the jurors who handed up the indictment last year.

Richie Taylor, a spokesman for Mayes, would not comment on the presidential action.

He acknowledged the Nov. 21 deadline for the attorney general to decide what to do next in the case. But he said that no decision has been made.

Even if the indictment is resurrected — or she takes the case back to a new grand jury — Mayes faces the fact that Myers said there is at least some reason to believe she is going after the defendants for their political views. Myers has deferred a final ruling on that until the question of the indictment is resolved.

Something else that could affect a final decision: Mayes, a Democrat who narrowly won her office in 2022 by just 280 votes, is seeking reelection this coming year.

“Politicians always think about the next election,’’ said Anthony Kern, a Republican former state senator who is one of those originally indicted in the “fake electors” case on charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery. That has to be on her mind if she has to start over again, he said.

“By the time she picks a new grand jury and is well into that process, she’s going to be well into the 2026 election cycle,’’ Kern said. “And I don’t think she wants that albatross hanging over her head.’’

Attorney Dennis Wilenchik, who is defending James Lamon in the case, said of the Trump pardon: “I think it’s another message to Kris Mayes to move on.”

Wilenchik agreed that the upcoming election is also a factor. “If she doesn’t move on it’s going to cost her politically,’’ he said. “I think everybody’s tired of it.’’

Jake Hoffman, a current Republican state senator seeking reelection who also was indicted, said the pardon “serves as further evidence of what I’ve said all along: I’m innocent and will be vindicated by the judicial process.’’

Hoffman said the cases in Arizona and elsewhere were part of a “coordinated conspiracy’’ by the Biden administration to weaponize the FBI, the Department of Justice and state prosecutors.

The Arizona case

While the indictment dates from 2024, it is based on activities right before and after the 2020 election. Eleven Arizonans and seven others linked to Trump’s reelection effort were charged with coming up with a scheme to tell Congress the state’s 11 electors should be credited to Trump despite the fact that Joe Biden defeated Trump by 10,457 votes in Arizona.

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Since then, Vice President Kamala Harris, who headed the 2024 ticket for Democrats, lost the race, not only nationally, but in Arizona by more than 187,000 votes.

Some similar cases against electors and Trump allies have fallen apart in other states, with a Michigan judge tossing the charges and the case stalling in Georgia after the Fulton County attorney was disqualified from pursuing the charges over a “significant appearance of impropriety’’ related to a romantic relationship she had with a top prosecutor on the case.

Prosecutors in New Mexico and Pennsylvania never brought charges.

Other cases in Nevada and Wisconsin, however, remain alive.

Central to all of the cases is the claim that Trump and his allies created a scheme to have Republicans in battleground states submit paperwork claiming they were the legal electors. If nothing else, that was designed to get Mike Pence, then the vice president and the presiding officer of the Senate, to refuse to accept the official results from Arizona and other states and prevent Biden from getting the necessary 270 electoral votes.

The Arizona indictment named the 11 people who signed the certificate that was sent to Congress declaring Trump had won Arizona, and also charged former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several of Trump’s attorneys, including John Eastman, Christina Bobb and Rudy Giuliani.

Another Trump attorney, Jenna Ellis, already has a deal to have the Arizona charges dismissed based on a promise to cooperate with prosecutors.

Also on the pardons list was Kenneth Chesebro, who was a legal adviser to the Trump campaign. He had already met with investigators in Arizona before the indictment was issued, and was never charged with the others. Mayes already put him on a list of witnesses she intends to call when the case goes to trial.

Trump’s pardons

Trump issued grants late Sunday of “full, complete, and unconditional pardon’’ for anything related to “advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in or advocacy for any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors.’’ Presidential pardons pertain only to federal crimes; none of the more than 75 people listed have been charged with federal crimes.

Not on the list is Trump himself, despite the fact that the president has openly toyed with the question of whether he has the power to pardon himself should a future administration decide to revisit the issue.

All this is on top of the president’s blanket pardons issued in January to nearly 1,600 people who had been charged — and in some cases convicted — of federal crimes associated with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was reviewing the electoral votes from Arizona and other states.

If Mayes continues the case, whether because the Supreme Court overturns Myers’ decision, the indictment was flawed or because she convenes a new grand jury, the next legal battle will be over something called the Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation law.

In essence, that law says defendants in cases can ask for dismissal, even before a trial, if they can prove “the legal action was substantially motivated by a desire to deter, retaliate against, or prevent the lawful exercise of a constitutional right.’’

Myers ruled earlier this year that there was at least some evidence presented by defendants that the charges were brought at least in part because they exercised their rights of petition and speech. There has been no final ruling, pending whatever happens with the grand jury indictment.