A "robust" state investigation into the Arizona GOP activists who declared themselves fake electors for former President Donald Trump in 2020 is fully underway, reported CNN's KFILE on Friday.
"They broadcast themselves preparing to sign the documents, allegedly provided by a Trump campaign attorney, claiming that they were the legitimate representatives of the state’s electoral votes," reported Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck and, Kyung Lah. "By that time, Trump’s loss in the state – by less than 11,000 votes – had already been certified by the state’s Republican governor affirming that Joe Biden won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election."
Even after the certification, the report noted, five of these self-styled "Republican electors" mounted an aggressive campaign pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to count them, rather than the actual Democratic electors who were chosen by voters.
This was one of the most aggressive efforts in any of the battleground states where fake electors were declared, said constitutional scholar Anthony Michael Kreis: “There is no difficulty trying to piece together their unlawful, corrupt intent because they publicly documented their stream of consciousness bread trail for prosecutors to follow.”
State Attorney General Kris Mayes has confirmed that she is coordinating with the Justice Department and investigators in other states: “It’s robust. It’s a serious matter.”
Arizona is one of several states where fake electors are under criminal investigation.
In Georgia and Michigan, some of the fake electors have been hit with felony charges. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the fake electors face a civil suit. Experts believe the fake electors in Pennsylvania are less likely to be charged, because they used far more cautious language in their signing document, acknowledging the real electors and claiming they were only electors contingent on legal challenges to the election results succeeding.
