An Arizona judge refused to permanently close the criminal case against a group of 2020 election deniers, clearing the path for new felony charges.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers issued the order Friday, rejecting the defendants' requests to make the case's dismissal permanent.
The defendants include former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and attorney John Eastman — among 18 people charged with conspiracy, fraud, and forgery for allegedly trying to keep President Donald Trump in power after he lost Arizona in 2020.
Myers rejected the defendants' push to make the dismissal permanent — a legal outcome that would have barred the state from ever charging them again.
The court found, according to the order, that "the interests of justice do not require a dismissal with prejudice."
The defendants cited the passage of time, legal costs, and the stress that years of prosecution had imposed on them, the order said.
They argued the case should be closed permanently.
Ward had pushed back on the prosecution even before Friday's ruling, according to the Associated Press.
Ward wrote on social media in June that Mayes "certainly seems unwilling to admit her overreach & put this behind us. She wants to keep persecuting her political opponents."
The case had been thrown out in the first place over a legal error by prosecutors, the court found — not a ruling in the defendants' favor.
A judge previously ruled that prosecutors never showed the original grand jury the full text of an 1887 federal law governing how presidential contests are certified — a law the defendants said proved they had done nothing wrong.
The Arizona Supreme Court refused to reverse that ruling, leaving the case in limbo.
Facing a 15-day deadline to re-present the case to a new grand jury, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes moved to dismiss it instead.
Mayes wrote in her June 17 filing that the state sought to "dismiss the indictment without prejudice, so the State can re-present this case to the grand jury on a reasonable timeline."
The original grand jury indicted all 18 defendants on nine felony counts each for allegedly submitting false documents to Congress claiming Trump had won Arizona in 2020. Joe Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes, according to the court order.
Similar fake elector prosecutions in Michigan and Georgia have been dropped as well, and a federal special prosecutor dropped charges against Trump himself in late 2024, the Associated Press reported.
Back in Arizona, both Republican candidates for attorney general publicly vowed to drop the case if elected, according to the Associated Press.
The case could stretch into 2027 or 2028 before a new grand jury proceeding concludes, Votebeat reported.
