The GOP chair for Arizona played a key role in disseminating Trump’s election claims and organizing the fake elector scam. She still tries to avoid the investigators, though.
Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, may prove to be the key that opens a treasure trove of information concerning former President Donald Trump’s plot to rig Arizona’s 2020 presidential election and retain power eternally.
She doesn’t want to know, though.
The House Jan. 6 committee’s inquiry into the Capitol attack and attempts to sabotage the 2020 election is something that Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, have repeatedly attempted and failed to have the courts protect them from. And on Wednesday, she received some momentary solace from Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.
In response to the Wards’ urgent application to the Supreme Court, Kagan temporarily overturned a federal judge’s directive that the Wards comply with a subpoena for phone records covering the period from November 2020 to January 2021.
The Wards will probably receive a brief reprieve from congressional investigators as a result of the action, at least until the Supreme Court decides whether or not they must comply.
Just to catch you up, Kelli Ward and her husband both signed paperwork misrepresenting themselves as members of the Electoral College. Even though Joe Biden won the state, they attempted to give Trump the state’s electoral votes and submitted those fraudulent paperwork to Congress for certification on January 6. The Jan. 6 committee, which claims Kelli Ward repeatedly used her Fifth Amendment right during questioning by the panel earlier this year, is very interested in the fake electors conspiracy.
Since the Jan. 6 attack is unrelated to the fake electors scheme, the committee’s scope is too broad, and Kelli Ward was acting within her First Amendment rights when she engaged in this anti-democratic fake electors plot, she claims, the committee shouldn’t have jurisdiction over her phone records. Kelli Ward has been fighting to keep her phone records out of the committee for months.
This tweet appears to contradict her allegation that the fake elector plot and the riot on January 6 were unrelated. It was issued as protestors stormed the Capitol and called on Congress to transfer vote certification decisions back to the states (as Trump’s campaign intended).
The claims of Ward’s involvement in Trump’s post-election plot are detailed in the committee’s letter to Ward on January 6 asking for compliance with their probe.
She allegedly exerted pressure on Arizona election officials to cease tallying votes as they were tallying the results, according to the panel. Messages she allegedly made to a local election supervisor that were discovered by public records requests last summer lend credence to that assertion. On November 13, 2020, when it became evident Biden would win the state, Ward reportedly tried to arrange a call between Trump and the Arizona election supervisor.
The Jan. 6 committee reportedly claimed to have recordings demonstrating Ward had direct conversations with Trump and his aides regarding “election certification issues in Arizona,” potentially linking him to the scheme to have the results overturned.
It only serves to highlight how crucial the Wards’ phones’ data may be. Arizona was probably the core of the conservative movement’s efforts to reverse Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, second only to Georgia. Unquestionably loud in repeating Trump’s lies, Kelli Ward assisted Arizona Republicans in raising a ton of money by doing so. We could learn how involved Trump was in feeding her such lies if congressional investigators get their hands on her phone records.
