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A deal struck by Jim Lamon to voluntarily surrender some emails he received to the Attorney General's Office is resulting in all the charges being dropped against him. Richie Taylor, spokesman for the office, declined to say what is in the emails and who they are from.

"They are important to the state's case,'' he said. "That's all I can tell you.''

The Attorney General's Office already had the documents, which had been produced under a subpoena. But Taylor said that really didn't help. "We couldn't use that without Lamon's approval,'' he said.

Part of the reason, he said, is that there is no active case right now.

A trial judge tossed out the indictments against Lamon and the remaining defendants after ruling the grand jurors were not given all the information to which they were entitled. The AG's office is seeking Supreme Court review.

"So what this agreement allows us to do is get those emails now and use them for the case,'' Taylor said,  assuming there is a case going forward.

There was also another legal issue.

Taylor said there was potential that some of the emails could be considered protected by attorney-client privilege.

"They were not usable to the state given the way that they were received,'' he said.

With the deal, and the documents being voluntarily surrendered, those legal issues go away.

The emails could prove of little use, however, unless the case gets back on track.

It's not just the ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers tossing the indictment that either needs to be reversed or if Attorney General Kris Mayes decides to convene a new grand jury.

There already is a separate preliminary ruling by Myers that the AG's office acted in violation of a state law that protects those who exercise their First Amendment rights from being pursued in criminal charges. If the case is resurrected in one way or another, that issue has to be resolved.

And there is a claim by Christina Bobb, another of the defendants, that Mayes should be disqualified from pursing the case based on an alleged financial link to a group that prepared a report for her on how to proceed with getting an indictment. There has been no hearing on that after Myers stayed the case.

All 18 original defendants were charged with conspiracy, forgery and fraud in connection with submission of the names of 11 Arizona Republicans to Congress after the 2020 election, falsely claiming Donald Trump had won the popular vote in Arizona and was entitled to the state's 11 electoral votes. Lamon was one of the signatories.

In addition to the 11, the other defendants were all linked to Trump, including attorneys and his chief of staff, who were accused of coming up with the scheme, not just in Arizona but in other states, to deny Joe Biden the 270 electoral votes he earned and to potentially allow Congress to decide who won the election.

Dennis Wilenchik, Lamon's attorney, said he was pleased with the deal. He pointed out that his client is the first to get out of the case without the same conditions that allowed others to do so.

Jenna Ellis, one of the attorneys for Trump, had the charges dropped after she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

And Loraine Pellegrino, who also signed the document claiming to be a legally chosen elector, was placed on probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false instrument.

Wilenchik said the decision to give the emails to the state is no big deal, disputing Taylor's contention the documents "are important to the state's case.''

"We agreed to nothing,'' he said. "Producing documents they already had, or waiving objections to them, who wouldn't do that?''

Wilenchik also said there's nothing in any of the documents that could hurt any of the remaining defendants.

"And Jim wouldn't testify against anybody else here because he doesn't believe the case had any legs in the beginning,'' he said, calling his client "a great patriot who did nothing wrong.''

"And we are now vindicated in that belief,'' Wilenchik said.