Judge rejects Giuliani claim that grand jurors' selections were based on party affiliation

An Arizona judge on Tuesday rejected Rudy Giuliani's request for information about the grand jury that indicted him there over efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results.

In a short order, Judge Bruce Cohen said he would not approve the longtime ally of former President Trump's request to disclose grand jury selection records, including the jurors' voter registration cards, nor issue an order to depose the jury commissioner who put the panel together.

Giuliani wrote in an August motion requesting the files that the voter registration cards would clarify whether any grand jurors were "interested directly or indirectly in the matter under investigation" or biased in other ways.

Cohen noted in his order rejecting the request that Arizona's 93rd Grand Jury, which indicted Giuliani and other Trump allies in April, was empaneled "well before" the 2020 election subversion case was ready for presentation before the grand jurors.

"The underlying claim that formulates the request is based upon pure speculation and
abject conjecture," Cohen wrote. "He claims that there is concern that the grand jurors that served on the grand jury that indicted Defendant Giuliani were selected based upon their political party affiliation. Yet he alleges not one scintilla of information that would support this claim."

Still, to reach a "compromise" in the name of "efficient" case management, Cohen ordered the Arizona attorney general's office to secure an affidavit from a person with actual knowledge of the grand jury summoning process answering whether political party affiliation was available to those involved in picking the 93rd Grand Jury. The state must also send Giuliani its written application for the empanelment of the grand jury.

In April, the grand jury indicted seven Trump aides, including Giuliani and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, alongside 11 pro-Trump Arizona Republicans who signed documents purporting to be the state’s valid electors in 2020.

They're charged with devising a scheme to raise false claims of election fraud to pressure Arizona election officials into overturning Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Biden beat Trump by just more than 10,000 votes in 2020, in one of the nation's tightest races.

Since then, two defendants have pleaded guilty, including former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis. Her charges were dismissed after she changed her plea and agreed to cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in August. A Republican activist who falsely claimed Trump won the election also pleaded guilty.  

Trump is not charged but is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. However, he has been charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in a federal case and in Georgia. 

Prosecutors in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada have also filed criminal charges related to the so-called "fake electors" scheme, though in June the Nevada case was dismissed, a decision that state prosecutors have appealed.