Christina Bobb in a December 2020 segment of her show "Weekly Briefing" on OAN.
Christina Bobb in a December 2020 segment of her show “Weekly Briefing” on OAN. (Image via YouTube.com)

Former San Diegan Christina Bobb could be off the hook — along with fellow election-deniers — in Arizona’s fake-electors case.

In April 2024, prosecutors accused her and 17 other Republicans of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in President Donald Trump’s favor.

Now Arizona prosecutors have to go back to the drawing board after a judge ordered the case returned to a grand jury.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers on Friday sent the case back to grand jurors to determine whether probable cause exists that the defendants committed the crimes.

The decision, first reported by The Washington Post, centered on the Electoral Count Act, a law that governs the certification of a presidential contest and was part of the defendants’ claims they were acting lawfully.

Although the law was discussed when the case was presented to the grand jury and the panel asked a witness about the law’s requirements, prosecutors didn’t show the statute’s language to the grand jury, Judge Myers wrote.

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The judge said a prosecutor has a duty to tell grand jurors all the applicable law and concluded the defendants were denied “a substantial procedural right as guaranteed by Arizona law.”

Bobb, 42, a San Diego State University MBA who worked for locally based One America News (and now the Republican National Committee), didn’t benefit from a technicality, her lawyer told Times of San Diego.

“Not really a technicality,” said Thomas Jacobs, Bobb’s Tucson-based attorney. “More like Christina and the others calling [out] the state in its tactic to downplay the importance of the Electoral Count Act by not bothering to provide it to the grand jury.”

On Monday, Jacobs called this action an intentional denial of an important due-process right.

“The state had the statute in hand, knew the defense based on the statute, and even mentioned it in their presentation, but deliberately withheld the information because they knew it would damage their case if the grand jury knew the whole truth and the reason why what these volunteers did was legal electioneering,” he said.

Jacobs noted that the original grand jury (“without a fair presentation”) voted 9-3 in favor of indictment.

“There is a high likelihood that a properly instructed, fairly informed grand jury would decline to issue an indictment,” he said via email. “That would mean the end of the case.”

Jacobs said he expected the judge’s decision.

“As to Christina Bobb, there was also false information presented, although the court did not rule on that argument,” he added. “Without the improper testimony, it is much less likely Christina Bobb would be indicted.”

Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat whose office is pressing the case in court, said in a statement that prosecutors would appeal the decision.

“We vehemently disagree with the court,” Taylor said.

Mel McDonald, a former county judge in metro Phoenix and former U.S. attorney for Arizona, said courts send cases back to grand juries when prosecutors present misleading or incomplete evidence or didn’t properly instruct panel members on the law.

“They get granted at times. It’s not often,” said McDonald, who isn’t involved in the case.

Attorney Jacobs shared Bobb’s reaction to the judge’s ruling: “Christina was very glad to receive this news, but she knows that the state will appeal and delay the process. They have already asked for a stay of the order for remand.”

In all, 18 Republicans were charged with forgery, fraud and conspiracy. The defendants consist of 11 Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to the former president, including Bobb and Rudy Giuliani.

Two defendants have already resolved their cases, while the others, including Bobb, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.

Most of the defendants in the case also are trying to get a court to dismiss their charges under an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics.

They argued Mayes tried to use the charges to silence them for their constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to the race’s outcome.

Prosecutors said the defendants didn’t have evidence to back up their retaliation claim and that they crossed the line from protected speech to fraud.

Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state in the 2020 election.

Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document later was sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.