Opinion: Lawfare Comes to Arizona – 18 Republicans Listed in Sham Indictments

By John F. Di Leo, Opinion Contributor

In yet another state – this time Arizona – Democrats in power have doubled down on the use of lawfare (the tyrannical abuse of the criminal justice system to harass political opponents), by indicting 18 prominent Republicans for alleged crimes in 2020.

In this case, it was a classic example of Sol Wachtler’s famous 1985 statement: “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”

A grand jury is assembled of regular citizens, usually non-experts, non-lawyers, who don’t need to even try to determine guilt; their job is just to believe a prosecutor’s claim that there is evidence meriting a trial. That’s all.

The more obscure the law, the more complicated the regulation, the easier it is to convince a grand jury to authorize the indictment. The jurors may not worry about whether it’s right or wrong, because they have confidence that the trial to come will fairly determine guilt or innocence. The system is designed to facilitate indictments (which is neither a bad thing nor a good thing in itself; it depends on the case).

This particular case, the case in question, is easily spun, and difficult to clarify. Making the corrupt case of the media is brief and simple; explaining why it’s wrong will take some foundation. Let us begin.

First, the Democrats’ case:

The state government of Arizona – more specifically, its election bureaucracy – declared Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners in November, 2024 (after the famous early call by major media outlets that shocked so many who were certain Arizona was too close to call). The state government therefore appointed a slate of ‘electors’ to participate in the coming electoral college vote. When a group of Republicans soon declared themselves the Republican slate, committed to President Trump, confirming that they would be ready to participate in the electoral college if called, the Democrats cried foul, and declared them ‘false electors,’ accusing them of fraud. This indictment is the prosecution for that claim.

There’s a problem with the foundation, however: in order to make this prosecution sound plausible, it has to be worded just that way, and the audience must be kept in the dark about how the electoral college actually works.

It is inconceivable that this level of ignorance could be kept up during a trial. The truth will out, as they say, and the rest of the story, the part they haven’t mentioned, is sure to become known. The Democrats behind this are playing a game with the calendar, planning to stage the indictments during the 2024 campaign season, and hoping against hope that they can postpone the trial itself until after the November election, when the truth can do them no harm.

So, here’s the Republican case, including the fundamental truth of the matter:

At the dawn of the American Republic, the Framers designed the electoral college to be a group of wise elder statesmen from each state, selected by each state’s legislature. One single group of people in each state would decide who they wanted to be President. There would be one single slate of electors every four years.

This has not been the case for generations.

Once America became divided into political parties, that plan had to change. Today, the American electorate – the voters – cast their own ballots on Election Day (or at some point over the course of a four to seven week autumn election season), so it’s each state’s voters who really choose their state’s winner in the presidential contest.

But the Constitution has never been changed to accommodate this partisan divide, so the states have tweaked the process.

As soon as the party nominations are determined – maybe sooner – both the Republican and Democrat presidential campaigns work with their respective state party organizations to choose a slate who will serve if they win their state. These rival slates are both ready, months before the election, because the members have to clear their schedules in November, December and January just in case their side wins.

Every state therefore had two slates of delegates, ready to serve as electors, in 2020, just as they have in every other presidential election. In some states, the people on the list know they have no chance of being called; the California Republican slate knows it has no chance of being activated, just as the Oklahoma Democrat slate knows it has even less of a chance.

But still they are gathered, nominated, listed, and announced. Every year, in every state. That’s how it works. That’s how it always works.

After the election, when the state certifies a winner, the winning candidate’s slate is activated, and the losing candidate’s slate finds itself with plenty of free time.

But if the state results are in question, like the famous Florida case of Bush V. Gore in 2000, then both parties’ slates keep their schedules clear, because nobody knows which slate will get to serve in the end.

In 2020, there were numerous states in which the allegations of vote fraud were significant enough that a flip was possible, even likely. Challenges involved credible cases of ballot-box stuffing, illegal voters participating, massive fabrication of false ballots, even computer tampering in the election software and hardware.

These challenges needed to go through the courts. Just like in 2000, both slates in the states in question knew they needed to stay ready in case they were called to serve.

Unlike in 2000, however, the Democrat leadership knew that they weren’t planning on allowing any of these cases to go to trial. They engineered most of these cases to be thrown out on technicalities before evidence could be presented, in order to strengthen the line in public opinion that “Trump lost every case.”

The fix was in; the Democrat slates were sure to be called up. And so it was that the official Democrat line became this counterfactual claim that the Republican slates were false slates, imposters, false electors.

It’s patently ridiculous, of course. Every state has had both a Republican slate AND a Democrat slate at the same time, throughout living memory. The only question is which slate their respective states would fly to Washington. And if the decision is contested, the Constitution still says that the state legislature makes the final decision. Remember, it’s never been amended to arrange otherwise.

The Democratic Party, which has always built its strategies on keeping the American public in the dark, had a simple solution to this problem: disregard the law, disregard the Constitution, and simply call the Republican slates “fake” often enough that the public believes it.

Once the public knows that there are always two slates, so there’s nothing fake about it – once the public knows that there were tons of legitimate challenges that were squashed, out of illegality and cowardice – once the public realizes that this entire process is designed to distract the public and slander their fellow citizens for the ‘crime’ of legally and honorably participating in the election process – the truth is bound to hurt the Democrat case.

They are playing a dangerous game, and it’s all about running out the clock. The goal of lawfare in 2024 is to have the most negative news come out during the campaign season, and postpone all the revelations that show the Republicans’ innocence, and the Democrats’ guilt, until long after the next election, when the Left is safely in power and fears neither prosecution nor election, ever again.

That’s the plan.

Will it work?

For the sake of America, for the sake of our Founding Fathers’ precious legacy, we must hope they don’t get away with it.

Copyright 2024 John F. Di Leo