Has tyler bowyer faced criminal charges or indictments?
Executive summary
Tyler Bowyer has been criminally accused: he was one of 11 people indicted by a Maricopa County grand jury in Arizona as part of the 2020 “fake electors” prosecutions and faces multiple felony counts tied to that scheme (including forgery, conspiracy and related charges) [1] [2] [3]. Recent developments include litigation over access to his Turning Point emails and procedural rulings in the Arizona case; a separate presidential pardon addressed some federal exposures but does not erase state indictments [2] [4].
1. The indictment and the charges: what Bowyer is accused of
In April 2024, a Maricopa County grand jury returned a multi-defendant indictment that named Tyler Bowyer among 11 Arizona “fake electors,” charging each with a set of felony counts arising from the effort to submit an alternate slate of electors after the 2020 election; reporting lists counts such as multiple counts of forgery alongside conspiracy and fraud-related counts [3] [2] [1].
2. The broader context: who else was charged and how Arizona fits into the national picture
Arizona’s indictment was one of several state actions against alleged “fake electors” that followed similar prosecutions in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia; the Arizona filing was part of a 58-page grand jury indictment that implicated local Republicans and several Trump aides in alleged conduct spanning from Election Day to certification [3] [4].
3. Procedural twists: grand jury disclosure issues and the limits of pardons
Defense arguments prompted a Maricopa County judge to find prosecutors had not supplied the grand jurors with the full text of the Electoral Count Act, a ruling that required Attorney General Kris Mayes to reconvene a new grand jury and reprovide that statutory text if she wanted to proceed—a procedural hurdle that has slowed the state prosecution [4]. Separately, former President Trump issued pardons in November 2025 that covered some participants on federal exposure, and those pardons included Bowyer for federal charges; reporting stresses that presidential pardons do not nullify state criminal indictments, leaving Arizona’s case unaffected by the federal clemency [4].
4. Litigation over evidence and the accused’s organization’s response
Turning Point Action and related entities have actively litigated in state court to shield Bowyer’s Turning Point emails from warrants and subpoenas, arguing in at least one filing that the probe risks political targeting; news coverage emphasizes TPUSA’s assertion that the email seizure was unjustified even as the organization acknowledged the underlying indictment would be litigated in court [2].
5. Public narrative, allies and counterclaims
Supporters, including high-profile allies within the conservative movement, have framed indicted participants as politically persecuted “heroes,” while prosecutors have portrayed the fake-elector effort as part of an organized attempt to subvert the 2020 certification; reporting points to public endorsements and defenses of those indicted as politically charged, and notes some co-defendants later pleaded or cooperated, though there is no source here showing Bowyer pleaded guilty [5] [3] [6].
6. What is not established in the reporting provided
The assembled sources clearly show Bowyer was indicted and charged in Arizona and that federal pardons later covered some federal exposure, but the materials at hand do not provide a final adjudication for Bowyer in the Arizona case—no conviction, acquittal or guilty plea by Bowyer is documented in the supplied reporting—so the status of any state-level resolution remains unconfirmed in these sources [4] [3] [6].