Serious crimes, unserious people

The moral arc of the universe and all that … Big money in retention elections … And ask and ye shall receive.

Most of the defendants in Arizona’s fake electors case made their first court appearance yesterday, getting their mugshots and fingerprints taken ahead of their criminal trials. 

Arraignment is a pretty serious moment in the lives of most criminals. Looking up at a judge and declaring “not guilty” naturally lends itself to a certain amount of reflection — a moment, perhaps, where one might wonder what had gone wrong. 

Instead, Trump lawyer and bagman of the fake elector scheme Rudy Giuliani used his time in telephonic court to literally and audibly take a piss. 

At least it sure sounded like that’s what he was doing.¹ 

That weak tinkle sound was the perfect metaphor for how the fake electors have treated our political and legal systems since deciding to attempt to overthrow the will of the nation’s voters. 

It was also a clear reminder of the type of people we’re dealing with here. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, does a good circus scene.

A serious lawyer does not pee during a telephonic court hearing where he is the defendant and is facing nine felony charges. And dare we say, a serious lawyer should even know how to use the mute button in any situation that might sound like he’s peeing. 

The plot to overthrow the 2020 election results is one of the great political conspiracies of the century. But the people at the center of it, it’s worth remembering, are not our best, brightest or most serious people. 

It took three-and-a-half years for the accused to ever see the inside of a courtroom, in part because former Attorney General Mark Brnovich didn’t seem to have any interest in investigating the issue while running for his party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in 2022. 

But for all the anticipation and buildup, yesterday’s arraignment was a pretty low-key affair. A small crowd of election deniers and history revisers showed up to rally for the accused, declaring the “alternate electors” are victims of political prosecutions. But mostly, it was Giuliani’s show.

Giuliani was the only one of the 11 defendants arraigned yesterday who had to post bail, which the judge set at $10,000 after his series of taunts at the Attorney General’s Office for not being able to find and serve him. And he was the only one the judge threatened to mute. 

He also showed up late saying he had the time wrong and declared the entire proceeding against him “a complete embarrassment to the American legal system.”

Besides Giuliani, the other 10 people charged yesterday include former AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward and her husband Michael Ward, Republican Sen. Anthony Kern, former OANN anchor Christina Bobb, Turning Point’s Tyler Bowyer, and former Republican Party officials and activists Greg Safsten, Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead and Lorraine Pelegrino.

There are another seven defendants in the case, including Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman and former U.S. Senate Candidate Jim Lamon, who we’re still awaiting mugs from. Most of them are scheduled to be arraigned next month.

Oral arguments in the criminal cases are scheduled for October, just in time for the November election.

An actual brawl broke out at Monday night’s meeting of the Legislative District 2 Republican club, where Republicans were attempting to censure Christian Lamar for “repeatedly violat[ing] bylaws and rules of order.” Lamar is a failed 2022 candidate for the district who ironically is big on censuring fellow Republicans.

The fracas ended with two women trading blows on the ground while a man yelled “no videotaping” in a videotape that went small-time viral among Arizona’s political nerds.

The QAnon Shaman, AKA Jacob Angeli Chansley, even stepped in to break it up. At least one person in the crowd was armed, video of the event shows. 

Separately, two men got into a screaming match, swearing at each other as they bumped chests.

“No more RINOs in here ... Oh yeah, you wanna do it? You wanna do it? You wanna fucking go?” one screamed. 

LD2 is among Arizona’s most competitive legislative districts, and Republicans currently hold two of the district’s three legislative seats: Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick is running for reelection against Democratic Rep. Judy Schwiebert,² and Republican Rep. Justin Wilmeth and newcomer Ari Bradshaw are attempting to win the district’s two House seats over single-shot Democrat Stephanie Simacek.

Republicans hold a significant voter registration advantage in the north Phoenix district, but Democrats have been gaining traction and hope to flip the Senate seat.

Retention intentions: The National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Planned Parenthood Votes plan to spend $5 million on supreme court races in six states, including Arizona, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Another organization, Progress Arizona, has already started calling for voters to kick Arizona Supreme Court Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King from the court after they voted to uphold the 1864 abortion ban. Meanwhile, Bolick penned a 1,500-word op-ed for the Republic insisting his vote with the majority to reinstate the ban was based on careful legal analysis — not ideology. He said “partisan special-interest groups are hijacking the retention process” by calling for voters to reject his retention. Bolick also pointed to his wife Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s vote to overturn the ban, which he said “caused no marital disharmony.” 

“The system is not built to withstand political attacks, and judges seeking retention are at a massive disadvantage. We cannot ask people for money — and funds raised on our behalf would (and should) be scrutinized,” Bolick wrote. 

Footing the bill: Maricopa County taxpayers will have paid an estimated $314 million by mid-summer 2025 to bring the sheriff’s department into compliance with a court order requiring deputies to stop racially profiling Hispanics under former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Associated Press’ Jacques Billeaud writes in his annual report on the topic. The department has yet to become fully compliant.

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Define ‘ethical’: Democratic Sen. Brian Fernandez filed an ethics complaint against Republican Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern over their indictments in Arizona’s ongoing fake electors lawsuit, alleging the duo broke Senate rules and should be removed from their committee assignments, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy writes. The success of that complaint is doubtful in an ethics committee chaired by Sen. David Farnsworth, who has touted QAnon conspiracy theories and was endorsed by Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the House Ethics Committee dismissed a complaint that Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez filed in February alleging fellow members of the Latino caucus bullied, harassed and intimidated her, and in one instance, falsely imprisoned her after refusing to let Hernandez leave her office during a meeting. 

Pulling back the curtain: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued to unveil arbitration between Sun West Choice nursing home and the family of a resident who died there after signs of neglect, the Republic’s Caitlin McGlade reports. The nursing home’s parent company, The Ensign Group, was found to have subpar staffing levels while Sun West has been cited 16 times for violations like infection control and quality of life. 

The Mormon vote matters: The 2016 and 2020 elections show Mormons’ growing aversion to Trump, Samuel Benson told KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger on “The Show.” Benson is a national political correspondent for The Deseret News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons make up about 6% of Arizona’s population, and they could be a key voter demographic for Republicans.³

Phoenix City Council couldn’t make the call on the needlessly escalating issue of renaming a light rail station after Congressman Greg Stanton or the late Congressman Ed Pastor, so the Phoenix Heritage Commission took up the issue, per the Republic’s Taylor Seely. 

The commission followed the city council’s lead and didn’t make a decision on the name. 

Instead, they decided to ask whether Stanton even wants a light rail transit station named after him in the first place. If he admits he wants it, maybe they’ll name it after him. 

1. Giuliani didn’t respond to the Daily Beast in the course of its “leak investigation.”

2. That’s assuming Bolick makes it through her primary election against fellow Republican Josh Barnett.

3. Also, check out this piece Hank wrote for the New York Times back in 2020 on the same topic.