Tuesday · June 18, 2024

Boris Epshteyn Pleads Not Guilty to Nine Felony Counts in Arizona Fake Elector Case — Active Indictment Persists Through 2026

confirmed Importance 9/10 ~2 min read 3 sources 5 actors

Boris Epshteyn Pleads Not Guilty to Nine Felony Counts — Arizona Fake Elector Case Active Through 2026

On June 18, 2024, Boris Epshteyn — personal senior counsel to Donald Trump, previously a Sinclair Broadcasting political commentator, and now serving as a White House senior adviser — pleaded not guilty by phone to nine felony counts in Maricopa County Superior Court stemming from Arizona AG Kris Mayes’ fake elector indictment.

Indictment Background

Epshteyn was indicted on April 24, 2024 as part of Arizona AG Kris Mayes’ broader fake elector case. The charges involve Epshteyn’s alleged coordination of the scheme to submit fraudulent presidential electors for Donald Trump in Arizona following the 2020 election, working alongside Rudy Giuliani and others to obstruct congressional certification of the election results on January 6, 2021.

Case Status Through 2026

As of May 2026:

  • The Arizona indictment remains active — there is no federal preemption of state criminal charges under Gamble v. United States (2019)
  • Trump’s political action committee paid $40,000 and $10,000 to the Phoenix law firm Tully Bailey LLP representing Epshteyn, raising coordination concerns
  • Epshteyn serves simultaneously as Trump’s personal senior White House counsel — creating a sitting-government-official defense posture

Prosecutorial Significance in Armitage Framework

Armitage names Epshteyn as a consigliere — the in-house legal enabler structuring enterprise operations — with two aggravating factors:

  1. The active Arizona felony indictment for the fake-elector scheme (state prosecution already underway, predating the dual-sovereignty theory’s current articulation)
  2. An alleged internal DOJ/WH investigation finding that Epshteyn solicited monthly payments from cabinet officials and defense contractors for Mar-a-Lago access — a separate potential state extortion or commercial bribery predicate

Note: The “monthly payments” allegation is sourced in the Armitage essay but is NOT independently confirmed in the cascade corpus at primary-source level as of May 2026. This is a documented gap requiring a dedicated verification task.

Sources & Citations

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Tiers Tier 1 court records & gov docs · Tier 2 established outlets · Tier 3 regional & specialty press · Tier 4 opinion or single-source. Methodology →
Cite this entry
The Cascade Ledger. “Boris Epshteyn Pleads Not Guilty to Nine Felony Counts in Arizona Fake Elector Case — Active Indictment Persists Through 2026.” The Capture Cascade Timeline, June 18, 2024. https://capturecascade.org/event/2024-06-18--epshteyn-pleads-not-guilty-arizona-fake-elector-nine-felony-counts/