PHOENIX — Former presidential chief of staff to Donald Trump Mark Weiden and Michael Roman, director of Trump’s 2020 Election Day campaign, pleaded not guilty Friday in Phoenix to nine misdemeanor charges for their roles in an effort to overturn Trump’s election loss in Arizona to Joe Biden.
Meadows and Roman appeared by videoconference for separate brief hearings before Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Shellie Smith, who set a trial date of Oct. 31.
Meadows and Roman spoke during the hearings only to answer Smith’s questions with their names and dates of birth.
The indictment alleges that Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in an effort to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat at the ballot box.
The document alleges that 11 Arizona Republicans filed papers falsely declaring Trump won in Arizona. It also says that Meadows confided to a White House aide in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election.
Roman is accused in the indictment of working closely with Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn and others to orchestrate the fake voter votes in Arizona and six other states.
Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, pleaded not guilty in May facing nine felony charges stemming from his role in the fake voters’ efforts. The Arizona attorney general’s office released a copy of the indictment that also revealed charges against Trump attorneys John Eastman, Christina Bobb and Jenna Ellis.
Epshteyn and James Lamon, another Republican who claimed Trump controlled Arizona, are scheduled to make oral arguments on June 18.
Meadows and Roman previously pleaded not guilty in Georgia state court to charges that they participated in an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results.
was Roman charged Tuesday in Wisconsin with forgery for allegedly giving that state’s counterfeit voter ID credentials to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer to deliver to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the results.
Other states where criminal charges have been filed in connection with the fake voter program are Michigan, Nevada And Georgia.
