Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and more than a dozen Trump allies indicted in Arizona for fake elector plot

A grand jury indicted 11 Arizona Republicans and seven others for their role in an alleged scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House by falsely certifying the state’s 2020 election results as a Trump win.

The indictment accuses the group of trying to prevent “the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

"We conducted a thorough and professional investigation over the past 13 months into the fake electors scheme in our state," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a video on Wednesday announcing the charges. "I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough. And I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all. But as I’ve stated before, and we’ll say here again, today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined."

In addition to the 11 people named in the indictment, seven other individuals are charged, though their names are temporarily redacted pending notification of the case. However, given other information about them in the document, their likely identities are apparent.

Former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani appears to be among the defendants, though his name is among those that are redacted. He is described in the indictment as a person “often identified as ‘the Mayor’” who “spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona and nationally shortly after November 3, 2020.”

According to the indictment, one month after the election, 11 Trump-supporting Republicans convened at the state’s GOP headquarters in Phoenix to sign certificates claiming the state’s electoral college votes.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.

Alex Woodward contributed reporting to this story.