2 Arizona Republicans who falsely claimed to be electors subpoenaed by Congress

Two Arizonans who signed a document falsely declaring they were empowered to cast the state’s electoral votes for former President Donald Trump were subpoenaed Friday by a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump lost the 2020 election in Arizona. Yet, 11 Republicans met at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a document that said they were “duly elected and qualified” electors for Arizona.

In total, seven states sent slates of alternate electors to the U.S. Senate.

The Select Committee of Congress subpoenaed the chairperson and secretary from each of those seven states who signed the certificates making the false claim.

In Arizona, the chairperson was Nancy Cottle; the secretary was Loraine Pellegrino.

Neither could immediately be reached for comment.

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In a previous January interview, Pellegrino told the Republic that she didn’t like being called an alternate elector. She said she was simply an elector for Trump and cast a vote on Dec. 14, just as she would had Trump carried Arizona.

“We were electors for Trump and we were hoping things would change,” said Pellegrino, who has been an Arizona delegate at the past three national Republican conventions. “Just in case, we signed our paperwork to be ready in the event that something was overturned.”

The subpoenas sent to Cottle and Pellegrino said that the Select Committee wished to inquire “about your role and participation in the purported slate of electors casting votes for Donald Trump and, to the extent relevant, your role in the events of January 6, 2021.”

The subpoenas ask for the women to turn over documents relevant to the inquiry by Feb. 11, and that the two sit for depositions on Feb. 16.

The committee’s subpoena said that the documents falsely listing alternate slates of electors were part of a plan to “delay or block” the certification of the Electoral College's votes for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Jan. 6, 2021.

A footnote references a memo written by an attorney for Trump that outlined a strategy that would have allowed Vice President Mike Pence, as overseer of the joint session, to not accept votes from states that had two slates of electors.

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According to the memo, Pence would either declare a Trump victory based on him winning a majority of the counted electoral votes. Or, a stalemate that would have allowed state legislatures to vote to certify the alternate slates, the memo said.

The chairman of the Select Committee, Bennie Thompson, D-MS, said, in a statement, that the committee believes “the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme.”

The document that the Arizona Republicans signed, falsely naming themselves the state’s electors, was sent to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives, as well as the federal court in Phoenix and the Secretary of State’s Office.

Among those who signed were Jim Lamon, currently a U.S. Senate candidate; Jake Hoffman, a state representative; Anthony Kern, a former state lawmaker running for a state Senate seat; and Kelli Ward, the state Republican Party chair.

In a video posted to the Arizona Republican Party’s YouTube page on Dec. 15, 2020, the day after the signing ceremony, Ward explained that the 11 represented the state’s “true electors.”

“We believe that we are the electors for the legally cast votes here in Arizona," she said.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fake Trump electors from Arizona subpoenaed by Congress