The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Monday finding that Attorney General Kris Mayes did not comply with the law when she failed to turn over communications between her office and States United Democracy Center (SUDC) regarding her prosecution of the 2020 alternate presidential electors for Donald Trump. Mayes has been accused of allowing SUDC, a left-wing legal advocacy group, to draft the indictments against the electors.
The SUDC recommended six state crimes for Mayes to charge the electors with. They were Forgery, Tampering with a Public Record, Criminal Impersonation, Presentment of False Instrument for Filing, Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices, and Conspiracy. The memo provided to Mayes went over each crime, explaining how each element would apply to the defendants, such as intent and knowledge. Then, it reviewed each potential defendant by name, outlining the case against each one.
SUDC laid out possible defenses the defendants might come up with, refuting them in advance. They included relying on advice of counsel, good faith mistake of fact or law, statutes of limitation and reliance on historical precedent such as the alternate Hawaiian electoral slates in 1960.
The appeals court panel of three judges found that a lower court judge had improperly ruled that Mayes had complied with the public records request. Mayes only provided Judicial Watch with an index which listed documents the office was withholding, claiming attorney-client privilege or attorney work product confidentiality. The appeals court said this was not satisfactory. “Here, the index provided by the attorney general’s office supplies no context about the withheld emails that would allow a court or any other party to determine if a privilege applies,” the justices said.
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