Arizona judge sets 2026 trial date for Trump allies accused of attempting to rig 2020 election

Phoenix
CNN
—

A judge in the US state of Arizona has set January 5, 2026 as the trial date for allies of former President Donald Trump. They are accused of criminal conspiracy to annul the 2020 election.

At a hearing on Monday, which is still ongoing, several defendants are present in the courtroom, including conservative attorney John Eastman and several Arizona Republicans who acted as sham electors. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bobb, who serves as the RNC's chief counsel for election integrity, joined the hearing virtually.

This is the first high-stakes hearing since a grand jury indicted the fraudulent Arizona electors. Trump himself was not charged.

Lawyers for Trump allies will argue that prosecutors are seeking an overly harsh sentence to force the defendants to cooperate.

Arizona's attorney general has accused the Trump allies of committing multiple felonies on one occasion – an offense that, under state law, means a conviction is likely to result in prison time rather than the lesser penalty afforded to first-time offenders.

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, who was appointed in 2005 by then-Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, acknowledged that the trial date was a “moving target.”

The crucial hearing comes just days after Trump – who has not been charged in the Arizona case but is described in court documents as “unindicted co-conspirator 1” – held a rally in the key swing state as part of his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump has avoided trial in two criminal cases accusing him of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but Monday's hearing in Arizona underscores that many of those who sought to help the former president stay in power still face significant legal consequences as a result.

Most members of the Arizona grand jury that indicted the 18 Trump allies for their alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election had also expressed interest in indicting the former president.

The interest was so great that it prompted the state's lead prosecutor to ask the grand jury not to indict the former president, and to lay out his argument in a PowerPoint presentation, court documents show.

Trump was indicted at the federal level by Special Counsel Jack Smith and in Georgia by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for his efforts to overturn Joe Biden's legitimate 2020 election victory.

Prosecutors will point to their motion at Monday's hearing to prevent the grand jury from indicting Trump, seeking to rebut defense attorneys' claims that the case is politically motivated and should be dismissed.

Although Trump has not been charged in the Arizona election tampering case, the investigation is ongoing and prosecutors have not ruled out the possibility of charging others, including the former president, if evidence emerges to support that decision, sources told CNN.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in Arizona are moving forward with their case against the 18 other defendants, aiming for a possible trial date in early 2025.

Arizona prosecutors won their first victory earlier this month when former Trump 2020 campaign attorney Jenna Ellis agreed to cooperate in exchange for dropping charges against her.

As part of her plea deal, Ellis is also expected to testify against other defendants in the criminal case. She was originally charged with several crimes related to her alleged role in creating fraudulent electoral slates as part of a larger conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results on Trump's behalf.

One of the fraudulent Arizona electors who was charged at the state level also reached a deal with prosecutors earlier this month.

Loraine Pellegrino, who signed the forged document at the heart of the case against the Attorney General, agreed to plead guilty to the charge of forgery, which resulted in the other charges against her being dropped.

Like the other Arizona fraudulent electors and Trump allies charged in the case, Pellegrino faces multiple serious crimes for her alleged role in the alleged conspiracy.

The other defendants in the Arizona case, including several prominent members of the state's Republican Party and Boris Epshteyn, a former White House staffer who remains one of Trump's closest advisers, pleaded not guilty.

Separately, lawyers for Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, say the Arizona charges are “directly related” to Meadows' official conduct as Trump's last chief of staff and that his case should therefore be brought in federal court.

“Nothing that Mr. Meadows is accused of in the indictment is criminal per se. Rather, the indictment consists of allegations that he received (and occasionally responded to) messages from people who sought to alert President Trump to his ideas or to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts of the President's campaign,” they wrote in a federal court document.

“This is precisely the kind of government interference in the duties of a federal official that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits and that the Dismissal Act protects from adjudication by a state court,” the lawyers argued.

U.S. District Judge John Tuchi has scheduled a hearing for September 5. Tuchi was a nominee of then-President Barack Obama.

Meadows is familiar with the legal move. Last year, he took a similar action in Georgia after being indicted in Fulton County on similar state charges of election tampering in 2020.

This story has been updated with further developments.