What Trump’s Georgia indictment said about Rusty Bowers

D. Hunter Schwarz
·3 min read
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Rusty Bowers, Arizona state House Speaker, arrives as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a yearlong investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.
Rusty Bowers, Arizona state House Speaker, arrives as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a yearlong investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. | Jacquelyn Martin, Associated Press
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Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers is mentioned multiple times in former President Donald Trump’s latest indictment in connection with alleged efforts to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia.

The indictment, Trump’s fourth, is focused on events that occurred related to election results in Georgia, and it says Trump and his allies also operated in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Here’s what the indictment said about Bowers and other Arizona lawmakers:

  • Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani called Bowers on or about Nov. 22, 2020, and Giuliani made “false statements concerning fraud” in the election in Arizona and “solicited, requested, and importuned Bowers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona,” according to court documents. Bowers spoke about this call when he testified in front of the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

  • Giuliani and Jenna Lynn Ellis, another Trump attorney, spoke to unnamed Arizona lawmakers during a meeting on or about Nov. 30, 2020, to make false statements about fraud and unlawfully appointing presidential electors, according to the indictment, and Trump joined the meeting by phone and made false statements about fraud in the election in Arizona.

  • Giuliani and Ellis met with Bowers and other Arizona state lawmakers in Phoenix on or about Dec. 1, 2020, and Giuliani again made false statements about election fraud in Arizona and requested lawmakers call a special session, according to the indictment. “These were overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy,” the document says.

  • Trump called Bowers on or about Christmas Day in 2020 “for the purpose of soliciting, requesting, and importuning Bowers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona,” according to the indictment, and Bowers told Trump “I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you. I just won’t do anything illegal for you.”

  • John Eastman, a Trump lawyer, called Bowers on or about Jan. 4 and asked him to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from Arizona, and Bowers declined, saying he wouldn’t risk violating his oath of office, according to the indictment. The document dates the call to 2020 rather than 2021 in an apparent typo.

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The indictment also says Trump and his allies made false statements to state lawmakers in Arizona in November and December 2020 as well as to state lawmakers in Michigan and Pennsylvania in an attempt to persuade them to unlawfully appoint their own presidential electors.

It says schemes similar to the false Electoral College documents made in Georgia to overturn the state’s election results were also conducted in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Trump narrowly lost Arizona in 2020 by about 10,000 votes and no audits found evidence that widespread fraud impacted the results.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told the Arizona Republic she had no comment on the Georgia indictment.