Republican extremist and
conspiracy theorist Kelli Ward served as the
chair of the Arizona Republican Party from
2019 to 2023. She previously served in the
Arizona State Senate from 2013 to 2015. She
challenged incumbent Senator John McCain in
the Republican primary for the United States
Senate in 2016. Resigning from the state
senate to focus on the race, Ward was
defeated 51% to 39%. She ran in the 2018
Republican primary election for the U.S.
Senate, initially against Jeff Flake, and
then against Martha McSally, after Flake's
decision not to seek re-election. Ward was
defeated by McSally in the Republican
primary. She became chair of the Arizona
Republican Party in 2019. After the 2020
United States presidential election, in
which incumbent President Donald Trump lost
in 25 states, including Arizona, she filed
lawsuits seeking to nullify the state's
election results. She provided no evidence
of wrongdoing in the election and by
December 9, federal and state judges had
dismissed all challenges against
President-elect Joe Biden's victory in
Arizona. Under her leadership, the Arizona
Republican Party lost their US Senate seat,
the governor's seat, the office of the
Secretary of State, and the office of the
Arizona Attorney General.
Arizona’s
11 fake
electors
sign a
document
in
Phoenix
on Dec.
14 2020,
falsely
claiming
that
they
were the
state’s
electors
and that
Donald
Trump
won the
presidential
election
in
Arizona.
Screen
capture
by AZGOP
A grand jury
has indicted 18 people,
including two Arizona state
senators and the former head of
the Arizona Republican Party, in
a fake elector scheme that aimed
to install
Donald Trump as the
president after he lost the 2020
election to Joe Biden. The
Arizona Attorney General’s
Office has not released the
names of everyone who was
indicted, but all 11 fake
electors were charged:
"According to her
detractors, two-time failed U.S. Senate
candidate and former Arizona Republican
Party Chair Kelli Ward is primarily
responsible for making the Arizona GOP
penniless and obsolete, allowing
Charlie Kirk’s pro-MAGA group, Turning Point
USA, to usurp the state GOP, drive
traditional Republicans from office and turn
Turning Point into a pro-Trump money-making
machine that has, ironically, ceded the
ideological middle ground to the Arizona
Democratic Party."
"Arizona
actually had two fake elector
plots—one a bunch of sovereign
citizen goobers and the other
organized by the Arizona
Republican Party. The GOP was
very proud of their crime,
filming the whole thing and
posting photos on their Twitter
account. They smiled as they
committed a felony, telling
Republicans that theirs is the
“only slate of 11 you need to
worry about,” not the sovereign
citizens and certainly not the
duly elected and qualified
electors. The happy faces in
that photo are probably not
smiling now. Attorney Kenneth
Chesebro, who pled guilty in the
Georgia racketeering case, was
one of the movers behind the
fake electors scheme nationwide,
and as part of his plea deal
he’s agreed to testify against
other co-conspirators."
"Arizona’s criminal
probe into the 2020 fake electors plot is
heating up and investigators are now asking
plenty of questions about a key Donald Trump
ally involved in it: former state GOP chair
Kelli Ward. The Arizona probe has
been accelerating in the past several weeks,
two sources familiar with the matter tell
Rolling Stone, with prosecutors gathering
evidence and speaking with individuals with
knowledge of how the fake electors scheme
was carried out in the state. The fake
electors plot was a core component of the
then-president and his aligned lawyers’
plans to overturn his 2020 election defeat
and stop the legitimate transfer of power to
his Democratic successor Joe Biden. The
sources add that Ward — once one of the
state’s most prominent Republicans — and her
potential contacts and private activities
following Election Day 2020 have been of
particular interest to investigators as of
late. One of these sources describes Arizona
investigators as “moving aggressively” on
this stage of the inquiry into the state’s
pro-Trump fake electors, which included
Ward, a Trump hardliner and then-chair of
the Arizona Republican Party."
"Ward tried to stop
Maricopa County officials from counting
ballots, the filing reads. Further, the
filing says, she tried to get a top official
in Arizona’ most populous county in contact
with then-President
Donald Trump. She also,
the filing says, promoted false claims about
voting machines. Finally, the filing notes
that she became part of an alternate slate
of electors who were part of a failed scheme
that could delayed or overturned the 2020
general election victory of President Joe
Biden."
"Arizona Republican
Party Chair Kelli Ward asserted her Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination
to avoid answering questions from the Jan. 6
select committee, a lawyer for the panel
revealed in federal court Tuesday. “Dr. Ward
was deposed by the select committee, and she
declined to answer on every substantive
question and asserted her rights under the
Fifth Amendment,” select committee attorney
Eric Columbus said during a court hearing
before Arizona-based U.S. District Court
Judge Diane Humetewa. Columbus did not say
when Ward’s deposition took place, though
the select panel’s subpoena instructed her
to appear on March 8, 2022. Columbus
revealed Ward’s posture during a hearing on
the committee’s attempt to obtain her phone
records from cell phone carrier T-Mobile.
Ward sued the panel to block T-Mobile from
cooperating, but Humetewa recently rejected
her effort. "
"Arizona Republican
Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward shared a tweet
from an account rife with white racist
content and conspiracy theories on Monday
evening. Ward retweeted a violent video that
appears to show a white child being savagely
beaten by a larger boy with a darker
complexion, with the caption “homeschool
your children.” “Violent, hate-filled
predators are loose in our public schools.
And ‘the system’ again puts innocent
children in danger,” she quote-tweeted. The
original tweet came from Dan Lyman, who
describes himself as a “pureblood” in his
Twitter bio and has a pinned tweet of a
shirtless man who appears to be him at the
top of the account with the caption “White
Boy Summer has officially begun.” Lyman’s
Twitter account is a cascade of violent
videos, mostly of Black people attacking
white people, as he seemingly looks to paint
a crisis of anti-white violence in the U.S.,
as well as content from white supremacist
Nick Fuentes and right-wing conspiracy
theorists like Mike Cernovich."
"Kelli Ward, the head
of the Arizona Republican Party and her
husband, Michael, both
received grand jury
subpoenas from the Department of Justice
regarding their involvement in a scheme to
send up fake electors to Congress on Jan. 6,
2021."
"In the last 24 hours,
state GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward has attacked
House Speaker
Rusty Bowers, given him an
insulting nickname & endorsed his opponent
in the Aug. 2 primary. Is this really how
state party leaders act?"
"new texts were turned
over by Meadows to the House committee
investigating the events of January 6, 2021,
when rioters breached the U.S. Capitol as
lawmakers were voting to certify the 2020
presidential election and declare Joe Biden
the next president. [...] Other names
included Arizona Congressman
Andy Biggs, who represents much of the
East Valley, and Arizona Republican Party
chair Kelli Ward. Both have played
high-profile roles in disseminating election
fraud conspiracies over the last two years —
Biggs from Washington and Ward from Lake
Havasu City."
"Eleven
Arizona Republicans signed a
document representing a
nonexistent organization and
declared, “We are the electors
who represent the legal voters
of Arizona.” It was part of a
scheme by the Trump campaign to
organize phony electors in seven
states. Attorney General Kris
Mayes vowed to look into the
matter. According to the Post,
prosecutors have contacted many
people involved and their
lawyers. Investigators are in
the “fact-gathering” phase. The
“fake electors” under
investigation include two
lawmakers, Arizona State
Senators
Anthony Kern of Glendale and
Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek.
Tyler Bowyer of the
far-right activist group
Turning Point USA and
then-state GOP Chair Kelli
Ward also signed their name
to the document."
"A clip of
the head of the Arizona
Republican Party and her husband
signing illegitimate election
result documents—while falsely
claiming they were presidential
electors—has re-emerged, after
it was revealed the pair were
subpoenaed by the House Select
Committee investigating the
January 6 attack."
"Two Arizona
Republicans are among six people issued
subpoenas Tuesday by the House Jan. 6
Committee, with state Rep.
Mark Finchem and
state GOP Chair Kelli Ward told to turn over
documents and appear for depositions next
month. The individuals included in the
latest batch of subpoenas for records and
interviews were reportedly among the
Donald
Trump supporters involved in sending slates
of so-called "alternate electors" to
Congress to be included in the electoral
votes cast for president in the 2020
election. Finchem, a member of the state
House from Oro Valley, is running in the
Republican primary to be Arizona secretary
of state — the office that oversees
elections. Ward, who served a single term in
the state Senate before twice unsuccessfully
seeking the nod from GOP voters in U.S.
Senate primaries, has been the chair of the
state Republican Party since 2019. Both
Finchem and Ward have been outspoken Trump
supporters and backed the drawn-out and
bumbling "audit" of the election in Maricopa
County, hewing to the conspiracist line that
the election was "stolen" from the former
president. The phone records of Ward and her
husband were already subpoenaed earlier this
month by the committee. They filed suit to
block those documents from being turned
over."
"Arizona Republican
Party Kelli Ward is fighting a subpoena
aimed at getting to the bottom of what
increasingly appears to be a conspiracy to
overturn the results of the 2020 election so
that
Donald Trump could serve a second
term."
"An anti-mask
mandate rally Friday
that will feature
gubernatorial
candidate
Kari Lake,
staunchly anti-vax
Sen.
Kelly Townsend,
and various other
high profile,
far-right
politicians has
settled on an
interesting venue:
an elementary school
campus in Phoenix."
"Dr. Kelli Ward,
chair of the Arizona
Republican Party and
(according to her
website) still a
practicing
physician, has
joined fellow high
profile Republicans
whose aim, it seems,
is to put as many
members of the GOP
as possible in…the
morgue."
"you should know
that Chemtrail Kelli
Ward,
Patron Saint
of Batshit and
actual chair of the
Arizona GOP, went on
the One America News
Network earlier this
week and threatened
to arrest the
Maricopa County
Board of
Supervisors"
""As has been the
case, with the
chair, she says very
crazy things on a
regular occasion. I
mean, this is just
further evidence of
that," said Sen.
T.J. Shope, a
Republican from
Coolidge."
"Arizona Republican
activists say they
have gathered enough
support to force a
new election of
state party
officers, including
the position of GOP
chair held by Kelli
Ward.
The Republican
activists launched
their effort to
force a do-over of
the party’s Jan. 23
election after weeks
of complaints that
the closed-door
election was
improperly managed.
Ward and other party
representatives had
rejected repeated
calls over the past
two months to audit
the results and
procedures of the
election, drawing a
lawsuit from two
activists and
criticism from state
lawmakers who drew
comparisons between
her calls for
transparency in the
2020 presidential
election with her
rejection of calls
for an audit of her
own win."
"Dr.
Kelli Ward,
the far-right conspiracy theory-embracing
chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party,
encouraged her Twitter followers to don
scrubs and personal protective equipment
while attending “reopen” rallies to
bamboozle the media."
Question
4: Protecting individuals and businesses from being required to use their artistic expression in a manner that violates their conscience.*
Candidates'
Position: Support.
Question
9: Adding
“sexual
orientation,”
“gender
identity,”
or
“gender
expression”
to the
protected
classes
of race,
religion,
age,
sex, and
ancestry
in
nondiscrimination
law.
"Cernovich
spent months peddling the debunked "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, which alleges
high-ranking Democratic officials, including former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, are involved in a child pedophilia ring."
"Months after a white supremacist in
Wisconsin tweeted his support for Arizona
U.S. Senate candidate
Kelli Ward,
she has begun distancing herself from him."
Question
4: Protecting individuals and businesses from being required to provide services or use their artistic expression in a manner that violates their moral or religious beliefs.*
Candidates'
Position: Support
Question
9: Adding “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression” to the protected classes of race, religion, age, sex, and ancestry in nondiscrimination law.
Question
9: Arizona’s voter-approved constitutional definition of marriage should be defended to the fullest extent legally possible.
Candidates'
Position: Support
Question
11: Adding “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression” to the protected classes of race, religion, age, sex, and ancestry in antidiscrimination law.
Candidates'
Position: Oppose
Question
15: Protecting individuals and businesses from being required to provide services or use their artistic expression in a manner that violates their moral or religious beliefs.*
Question
9: Amending the United States Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Candidates'
Position: Support
Question
11: Adding
“sexual
orientation,”
“gender
identity,”
or
“gender
expression”
to the
protected
classes
of race,
religion,
age,
sex, and
ancestry
in
nondiscrimination
law.
Candidates'
Position: Oppose
Question
15: Protecting professionals from being required to provide services that violate their moral or religious beliefs.*
