Former Trump lawyer John Eastman pleads not guilty in Arizona election case

• The attorney John Eastman pleaded not guilty in the Arizona "fake electors" case charging him and other allies of former President Donald Trump with crimes related to their attempt to overturn Trump's loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election in the state.
• Eastman is the first of 18 defendants to be arraigned.
• Other defendants indicted in the case include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

The attorney John Eastman pleaded not guilty Friday in the Arizona case charging him and other allies of former President Donald Trump with crimes related to their attempt to undo his 2020 election loss in the state to President Joe Biden.

Eastman is the first of 18 defendants in the case to be arraigned in a state courthouse in Phoenix.

Arraignments of the other defendants, including former Trump House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, are scheduled for the coming weeks.

Eastman, Meadows, Giuliani, and more than a dozen other people — including Trump — are separately charged in Georgia state court crimes connected with their efforts there to undo Trump's 2020 defeat.

"I just had an appearance and an arraignment on charges that in my view should never have been brought," Eastman said outside of court Friday.

"I, of course, pled not guilty. I had zero communications with the electors in Arizona, zero involvement in any of the election litigation in Arizona or legislative hearings," Eastman said. "And I'm confident that with the laws faithfully applied I will be fully exonerated at the end of this process." 

An Arizona grand jury last month indicted Eastman and others.

In December 2020, 11 Trump supporters claimed to be Arizona's electors to the