Several associates of President Trump, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, will stand trial on January 5, 2026, on charges of rigging the 2020 Arizona presidential election, a judge said Monday.
The trial date comes just one day before the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, when Trump supporters, emboldened by his false claims of election fraud, stormed the Capitol while the election certification was underway.
Meadows, a former senior White House adviser, and Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal attorney, are among 16 defendants who have been charged in the remaining indictments, all of whom have pleaded not guilty.
Giuliani’s attorney said in a hearing Monday that the charges against Giuliani, a longtime Trump ally, should be dismissed because he committed no crimes while contesting Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in the state.
The state accused Giuliani of spreading false claims of election fraud and pressuring state and local officials to change the election results. Prosecutors also said he hosted a rally in Phoenix after the election and accused officials of making no effort to determine the accuracy of the election results.
“How did Mr. Giuliani know? Oh, my goodness, that he was hosting a meeting in downtown Phoenix?” asked Giuliani attorney Mark Williams, sarcastically. According to the Associated Press,. “How would he know it was a crime?”
Other defendants in the so-called “fake electors” in Arizona signed documents falsely claiming Trump won the 2020 Arizona presidential election.
At least a dozen defendants want the charges dismissed under an Arizona law that prohibits unfounded legal action to silence critics. They single out Democratic Attorney General Chris Mace, who campaigned for the investigation into the alternate-election case and is said to be against Trump.
Prosecutors said the defendants had no evidence to support their claims. The Arizona attorney general’s office declined to comment.
Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis was previously charged, but her charges were dismissed after she pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Arizona prosecutors earlier this month. A Republican activist who falsely claimed Trump won the election also pleaded guilty.
Trump himself is not a defendant in the case, though he is described in the indictment as “Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1.” However, he is charged in the federal case and for his role in the attempted overturn of the 2020 election results in Georgia.
The alternate electoral system relied on former Vice President Mike Pence to certify the electoral votes that supported Trump in battleground states, without certifying the actual electoral votes cast for President Biden. Pence refused to do so on January 6, 2021.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada also brought criminal charges in connection with the scheme, but the Nevada case was dismissed in June, and state prosecutors are appealing.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
