The heat is on Arizona's fake elector schemers as Biggs and Gosar get subpoenas
Add now Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar to the ranks of politicians and assorted scoundrels summoned to testify before the state grand jury about Arizona’s fake elector scheme.
Politico is reporting that Biggs and Gosar were slapped with subpoenas in Attorney General Kris Mayes’ probe.
That would seem to suggest that Mayes is looking beyond the 11 “patriots” who signed papers falsely claiming that they were “duly elected” to cast the state’s electoral votes for Donald Trump.
Good.
Naturally, the Freedom Caucus is fuming
Those 11 fake electors aren’t the only ones who ought to be downing Maalox by the bucketful.
Naturally, the Arizona Freedom Caucus, headed up by fake elector/Sen. Jake Hoffman, is horrified that the attorney general would stoop to investigating Republicans who tried to steal Arizona’s vote.
“The weaponization of government must come to an end," state Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann, fumed, after hearing that Biggs and Gosar had been subpoenaed.
Few fake electors have spoken, except Kern
The fake electors have been mostly mum about Mayes’ investigation, other than Sen. Anthony Kern, who spoke outside the courthouse last week, casting himself as a victim.
“I’m here in front of the Superior Court building this morning because I was an alternate elector in November 2020 for President Donald Trump,” said Kern, who’s now running for Congress. “I was asked to step up along with other ordinary citizens, and I chose to accept.”
Mayes needs to get to the bottom of exactly who asked Kern, Hoffman, then-GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward and the eight other fake electors to try to steal Arizona’s vote.
Fake elector uses his office: To go after Mayes
They were following the template set out in memos by Trump attorneys, detailing how Republicans in Arizona and six other states could submit “dual” sets of electors, allowing then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election or at least throw it into Congress, where Republicans could then declare Trump the winner.
What exactly was Biggs' role in this?
Even as the phonies were meeting at state GOP headquarters to cast their non-existent votes for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, across town a group of Republican legislators were signing a letter to Pence and Congress, falsely calling it “A Joint Resolution of the 54th Legislature” and attaching the state seal so it would look official.
In it they asked, “that the alternate 11 electoral votes be accepted for to Donald J. Trump or to have all electoral votes nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”
Then-Rep. Mark Finchem hand carried the lawmakers’ request to Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, where he met up with Biggs, who along with Gosar had attended post-election White House planning sessions in late 2020 to spitball ways to keep Trump in office.
Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander has said that he, Biggs, Gosar and then-Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama “schemed up” the Jan. 6 rally-turned-riot to put pressure on Congress not to certify the vote — a claim that all three congressmen have denied.
Mayes should go after every one of them
The day before the rally, Biggs texted Finchem asking for the letter signed by those Arizona legislators.
The next morning, Jan. 6, 2021, Biggs videoconferenced with then-House Speaker Rusty Bowers, asking if he would support decertifying Arizona’s electors. (He wouldn't.)
Biggs and Gosar went forward with the plan to reject Arizona’s legitimate electors anyway, as did Rep. Debbie Lesko, though the vote was delayed a few hours as Trump’s supporters stormed the building.
This scheme wasn’t about “alternate” electors, offering themselves as a Plan B in case the election was overturned by the courts. Those 11 rubes didn't just decide on a whim to try to overturn democracy.
This was a plot, carefully planned and meticulously coordinated, and certain Arizonans appear to have been in on it up to their eyeballs.
Mayes should go after every last one of them.
Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at laurierobertsaz.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rep. Andy Biggs was finally subpoenaed in Arizona fake elector case