Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.
Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected a prosecutor’s appeal to send the state’s 2020 presidential election fraud lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others to a grand jury.
The ruling announced Thursday marks another setback for Democratic Attorney General Chris Mays, who has struggled to get vast cases heard in court. Mays’ office announced that rather than dropping the prosecution, it would refer the entire case back to a grand jury. Her office declined to comment further on the court’s decision.
The ruling comes after similar cases in Michigan and Georgia were dismissed by courts, and a special counsel dropped a federal lawsuit accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in late 2024. Cases related to the fake elector scheme remain in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
A lower court judge in Phoenix concluded in May that the first grand jury in the case had not been shown the provisions of the Election Count Act, a 19th-century law governing the certification of presidential elections that was invoked by those charged in their own defense.
The lawyers argued that the law allowed multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were challenged, but the law was amended in 2022 to specify that states can only submit one slate of electors, and that it must be approved by the governor.
Mark L. Williams, an attorney representing Giuliani, praised the court’s decision and questioned whether Mays’ office would follow through on its promise to return the case to a grand jury. “In my opinion, it’s all worthless,” Williams said. “Mr. Giuliani did nothing wrong.” There has been no action at the trial court level in the Arizona case since mid-May 2025.
Former President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by a margin of 10,457 votes.
The state attorney general faces tough challenges in making her case. The lawsuit, filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election, brings complex conspiracy charges against 18 defendants.
More than a dozen motions to dismiss filed by the defense have slowed the pace of litigation. The first judge in the case recused himself in late 2024 after an email surfaced in which he directed fellow judges to denounce attacks on Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. The next judge ordered the case to be sent back to a grand jury.
Of the 18 defendants in Arizona, two were former Trump aides, five were lawyers who worked for Trump, and 11 were Republicans who filed false statements claiming Trump won Arizona. Three defendants settled their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
The others have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. Some say Trump signed the certification in case he wins a court challenge and urgently needs a new slate of electors by the Jan. 6 deadline for Congress to count the votes.
