Facing trial for attempting to overturn Arizona’s election results in 2020, Donald Trump’s allies are digging deep into state code to find a way out of the criminal charges.
Judge Bruce Cohen, who set a January 2026 trial date for the case, has spent the week listening to the defendants’ arguments that the charges should be dismissed on free speech grounds and over technicalities on certification deadlines. The three-day hearing ended Wednesday, with the possibility of another virtual hearing at a later point.
If Cohen finds the arguments have merit, it would deal a major blow to the prosecution’s case and vindicate the electors in their argument that their efforts to deliver electoral votes to Trump were constitutional. This could lead to potential chaos in future presidential elections, emboldening actors from a losing candidate’s party to submit their electors to Congress.
The case, brought by Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, accuses some of Trump’s most high-profile allies and confidants, like Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and former state GOP Chair Kelli Ward, among others, of trying to subvert the election through a fraudulent elector scheme. One of the indicted pleaded guilty, and another, lawyer Jenna Ellis, agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors.
Lawyers for defendants argued that Mayes’ lawsuit stemmed from political vindictiveness, drawing on the state’s anti-SLAPP (anti-strategic lawsuit against public participation) law, which in Arizona uniquely includes protections from criminal suits in addition to civil, a change the state legislature made in 2022.
“Our attorney general campaigned to go after what she called the ‘fake electors’ … she said she was going to prosecute these individuals,” Brad Miller, a lawyer for the Wards, said, claiming this was a political campaign to prosecute Trump’s allies.
“The thing that Mr. Giuliani is essentially being accused of here, Your Honor, is supporting President Trump and trying to challenge the election,” Giuliani’s attorney, Mark Williams, said, echoing the argument. “I drive from Tucson to … Phoenix. There are bumper stickers: ‘Vote for Trump.’ ‘Vote for Trump.’ Everybody is saying that, and that’s scary for Ms. Mayes.”
Cohen questioned this interpretation of the law, asking whether criminal activity, like a left-wing demonstrator throwing a brick at a building during the Black Lives Matter protests charged under a Republican prosecutor, would be protected under the state’s anti-SLAPP law.
Meanwhile, prosecutors decried the accusation that the criminal charges were politically motivated, calling the claim “ridiculous.”
Nick Klingerman, the chief lawyer arguing the case for the state, said that the charges had to be approved by a grand jury, who indicted more people than the prosecutor requested. Klingerman said that he discouraged the grand jury from indicting Trump, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Defendants’ lawyers also argued that those in the indictment are protected because Arizona lacks a “safe harbor” deadline as part of its election laws, which is when states effectively run out of time to conduct further recounts or address challenges and must select their electors.
In effect, the lawyers are saying that the defendants weren’t fraudulent electors meant to replace the duly-elected Democratic electors immediately, but rather a different “alternate” slate if the election results changed and a recount ended with Trump as victor.
“It was an alternate slate, not a fake electors case, as the press keeps repeating,” said lawyer Dennis Wilenchik, who represents one of the Trump electors, Jim Lamon.
While the attorneys for the defendants focused much of their legal arguments for dismissal on the prosecutors, there were signs that Trump’s allies were not necessarily a unified front in the fight against the charges.
At one point, Wilenchik distinguished his client from electors who participated for “nefarious” reasons, seemingly insinuating that some of the others in the indictment did have more fraudulent intentions.
And Thomas Jacobs, Christina Bobb’s lawyer, told the court that his client had less of a role than Ellis, who cooperated with the prosecutors in exchange for her charges being dropped.
“Christina Bobb had even less involvement with these activities than Jenna Ellis, who was just recently dismissed,” Jacobs said.
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Tara Kavaler is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.