Top allies of Donald Trump are facing unprecedented indictments in at least five states as the former president fights off his own slate of four criminal cases in the heat of the 2024 election season.
On Friday, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Mike Roman, a former Trump campaign team member, pleaded not guilty in an Arizona court to nine felony counts, including conspiracy and forgery. They are part of an indictment involving 18 individuals, which includes 11 state Republicans and seven Trump aides. The charges allege a conspiracy to send alternate electors to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to contest President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Arizona, the Washington Examiner reported.
Arizona Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes announced the indictment on April 24th. Meanwhile, three other defendants in the Arizona case, including state Republican James Lemon, and former Trump attorneys Jenna Ellis and Boris Ephsteyn, are scheduled to be arraigned on June 18th.
Earlier in the week, three men, including two co-defendants from Trump’s Georgia case, were charged in Wisconsin with attempting to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. Unlike the Georgia case, Wisconsin’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed these felony charges directly, without convening a grand jury, marking it as one of the most overtly partisan indictments against Trump’s allies to date.
“Our approach has been focused on following the facts where they lead,” Kaul said at a news conference on Tuesday when he announced three Trump allies were each charged with one count of “forgery,” a felony. In response to Kaul’s case, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) called it “outrageous.”
“Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin’s judiciary,” Johnson posted on X. “Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny. Democrats are turning America into a banana republic.” That said, on Wednesday, the sweeping racketeering indictment in Georgia, in which Meadows and Roman are also charged, hit a new wall of challenges for Willis.
The Georgia Court of Appeals halted all lower court proceedings in the Fulton County Superior Court for Trump and eight other defendants. This decision was made one day after scheduling a tentative hearing in early October. The hearing will address efforts by Trump and the other defendants to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis due to an alleged conflict of interest.
See also: Megyn Kelly: Dems ‘Will Rue The Day’ After Trump Conviction, Explains What GOP Must Do Next
The high number of cases filed by Democrats, or by a Justice Department under a Democratic administration, against Trump and his allies has strengthened Republican claims of a politicized legal system. The Examiner noted further:
Beyond the Democrats in five states that have brought similar “fake electors” indictments, federal prosecutors have brought unrelated charges against at least two former Trump administration advisers who are now either currently imprisoned or may be looking at prison time in the future. A judge on Thursday ordered former Trump administration adviser and War Room podcast host Steve Bannon to surrender himself by July 1 to begin serving a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee. Trump’s former trade adviser Peter Navarro is in a Miami prison for a similar offense after he was denied appellate court and Supreme Court relief.
Bannon told reporters outside the federal district courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Thursday that he has “great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.