PHOENIX — The Republican who was Arizona’s governor at the time of the 2020 election is criticizing prosecutors for bringing criminal charges against former President Trump.
In this Aug. 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump meets with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey in the White House Oval Office to talk about COVID relief. Today, Ducey is criticizing prosecutors for bringing criminal charges against Trump.
“We’ve never seen this with a former president of the United States,’’ former Gov. Doug Ducey said Tuesday. “And the question I would have, is this good for our country or is it tearing our country apart? I believe it is divided enough.’’
He also noted that the country is already in the midst of the 2024 election cycle in which Trump hopes to regain his former office.
“And I’d like to see this play out and be left to the people,’’ Ducey said.
He also said he sees politics at play in at least some of the charges previously been brought against Trump by federal prosecutors. These include charges of keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Largo estate after leaving the White House, and separate charges of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
“I’m concerned about the weaponization of the Department of Justice,’’ Ducey said.
But Trump’s current legal problems do not all originate in Washington. It was the Manhattan district attorney who brought charges against him of falsifying business records in what the indictment says was his attempt to conceal hush money payments to two women who alleged they had sexual relations with him before his 2016 election.
And the newest indictment Monday, including four specific charges against Trump for trying to interfere with the 2020 election, were brought by Fanni Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia.
Ducey said it makes no difference. “Justice itself and prosecutorial powers should not be weaponized, whether at the state or federal level,’’ he said.
He would not comment on specifics of the latest indictment handed up Monday in Georgia against Trump and his attorneys and allies for conspiring to try to “unlawfully change the outcome of the (2020) election.”
He also deflected questions about whether the specific actions Trump is charged cross the line into illegality — including pressuring the speaker of the Arizona House to unlawfully appoint electors who would vote for him even though he lost the election.
“That will be left up to the juries,’’ Ducey said. “Everyone has the presumption of innocence until they’re proven guilty. So now that burden is on the state.’’
The indictment is specific about how prosecutors say Trump and his attorneys worked to have Arizona’s 11 electoral votes cast for him even though Democrat Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes in 2020.
On Nov. 22, 2020, Trump and Rudy Giuliani, one of his attorneys, called Rusty Bowers, the Mesa Republican who was speaker of the Arizona House. The indictment alleges Giuliani made a false statement claiming fraud in the general election and “solicited, requested, and importuned Bowers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona,’’ electors that would have been pledged to vote for Trump. Bowers refused.
Trump tried again with a Dec. 25 call, again asking Bowers to appoint electors pledged to him, the indictment says. Bowers rejected the proposal.
“I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you,’’ the documents quote the former speaker as telling Trump. “I just won’t do anything illegal for you.’’
Bowers also rejected a similar request from John Eastman, one of Trump’s attorneys, two days before Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was to certify the election results — and the day Trump supporters marched on the Capitol and some rioted and invaded the building.
There also are charges that Trump’s lawyers met with unnamed Arizona legislators to ask them to appoint presidential electors favoring Trump, and that Trump joined the meeting by phone “and made false statements concerning fraud in the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election.’’
A separate meeting involving Bowers, then-Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and other lawmakers involved Trump’s lawyers trying to get them to call a special session of the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature, presumably to have lawmakers appoint Trump-pledged electors.
Two other charges say Kenneth Chesbro, another Trump lawyer, sent documents to Greg Safsten, who was executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, that were to be used by presidential electors nominees in Arizona to vote for Trump even though he lost the popular vote. Safsten was one of the signers of the fake document submitted claiming Trump won.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Maye, a Democrat who took office in January, has confirmed she is investigating whether any laws were broken by the 11 people who signed that document.
That has not gone unnoticed by Jan Brewer, Ducey’s Republican predecessor.
“I do believe that our attorney general is going to move forward on some kind of disciplinary action,’’ the former governor said Tuesday.
As to the merits of the Georgia indictment, Brewer said she hasn’t reached any conclusions.
“I have been watching very carefully to see how this all plays out,’’ she said. “I’m just sitting on the sidelines, watching like everybody else.’’
Nor would she opine on whether the former president acted illegally. “We have a court that will look at all of that and a jury and we will find out what their decision is,’’ Brewer said.
She also sidestepped questions of who she would support in 2024.
As for Ducey, he said he is going to the GOP presidential candidates debate next week in Milwaukee, an event that Trump has yet to say he’ll attend.
“I am looking forward to seeing the candidates,’’ Ducey said. “And I am undecided at this time.’’
Ducey has had his own interactions with Trump.
Most notably, those included a call Trump placed to him on Nov. 30, 2020, just as Ducey was signing documents certifying the election win for Biden. Ducey, on hearing the ringtone he assigned to the White House — “Hail to the Chief’’ — did not answer, silenced the ring and put the phone down.
Ducey would not say what occurred when he later connected by phone with Trump. But The Washington Post reported that Trump wanted him to look into false claims of fraud in the election.
Ducey would not discuss any of that Tuesday or any discussions he has had with Jack Smith, a special federal counsel investigating both the efforts to overturn the election and Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot, who had contacted him.
Donald Trump and 18 allies have been indicted in Georgia over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The criminal case announced Monday night is the fourth brought against the ex-president and the second this month to allege that he tried to subvert the results of the vote. The indictment details dozens of acts by Trump and his allies to undo his defeat in the battleground state.
