Kaul, Josh a g

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AN 6 26

As three alleged planners of Wisconsin’s fake elector scheme prepare to be arraigned this week in Dane County court, the criminal charges against them are moving forward in a national legal and political landscape that looks dramatically different from the one in which they were filed.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

When Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the charges in June 2024, Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump was battling a criminal case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and state prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada were bringing criminal cases tied to the fake elector scheme.

That scheme arose in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump allies tried to keep him in power despite his loss. Those allies, who became known as fake or false electors, attempted to cast electoral votes for Trump in multiple states he lost and submit those certificates to Congress.

Now, as the three defendants in the Wisconsin case await arraignment on 11 felony forgery charges on June 16, Trump has regained the presidency, and he and his allies are undertaking extensive efforts to rewrite what happened in the 2020 election.

Since returning to office, Trump has issued a federal pardon to those involved in the 2020 scheme, and his administration has sent the FBI to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The federal criminal case against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election has been dismissed. And, until recently, his administration had plans to allocate $1.8 billion to compensate people it claimed had been unfairly prosecuted by the federal government, raising questions about whether participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and those involved in the fake elector schemes could receive taxpayer funds.

Other state cases have also faltered. Georgia’s election interference case has been dismissed, though not before the prosecution secured some guilty pleas from Trump’s allies. Michigan’s false elector case has also been dismissed. Arizona’s remains unresolved after a major setback for the prosecution, and Nevada’s just resumed after its Supreme Court revived charges that a lower court had thrown out.

Kaul faced criticism for filing his charges so late — it was the last criminal case to be filed regarding the fake electors. But two years later, that timing has left Wisconsin’s as one of the last cases standing in the broader, mostly failed effort to prosecute Trump and his allies for their attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

“The direction of activity has completely flipped, from prosecuting the people who were disrupting the election or inhibiting the normal flow of events to now going after Trump’s adversaries,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor who founded the Elections Research Center.

The Trump administration’s new investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere, Burden said, “seems to be a targeted effort at people who were mostly upholding the law and trying to administer an election in a very difficult environment.”

Amid the federal government’s current activity, and nearly six years removed from the 2020 election, Burden said any guilty finding in the Wisconsin fake elector case would likely have a muted effect.

“If we wanted the public to believe that there were ramifications for that kind of unlawful behavior, it would have to happen quickly and publicly, and feel like it was an immediate response to what people had done after the 2020 election,” he said. “But that’s not where we are six years later.”

‘Shocking’ if there are no ramifications in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin criminal case is still in its preliminary stages. Although it was filed two years ago, a number of motions and an appeal have set the case back significantly.

The defendants — former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s Wisconsin campaign attorney in 2020; attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who advised Trump on legal matters; and former Trump aide Mike Roman — are scheduled to be arraigned on June 16.

Each faces 11 felony charges for his part in allegedly guiding Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors to send documents to the U.S. Capitol falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

The 10 false electors from 2020 aren’t defendants in the current case, but they separately settled a civil lawsuit in Wisconsin by acknowledging that Biden won the 2020 election and pledging not to violate election laws in the future.

Chesebro and Troupis separately reached a settlement in that case, turning over a trove of documents outlining their role in 2020 and agreeing not to participate in similar schemes in future elections.

Text messages and emails show that Chesebro was a primary architect behind the 2020 plan to have Wisconsin’s GOP electors attest that Trump won the state while Trump’s court challenges seeking to overturn the election were still ongoing. Troupis discussed that plan with the Trump campaign, and Roman helped craft the language of the documents Republicans planned to send to the Capitol from states that Biden won.

Troupis has since asked the federal government to reimburse him $3.2 million from the proposed $1.8 billion fund, saying his life has been a “nightmare” since he stepped up to represent Trump.

“My experience is a poster-child for what weaponization can do,” he wrote in a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, adding that “the entire legal system is at risk if compensation is not paid.”

Attorneys for Chesebro and Roman didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Troupis’ attorney declined to comment.

Burden said it is striking that the case is still ongoing nearly six years after the election, but he said the conduct at issue remains extraordinary.

“These were among the most serious challenges to elections we’ve seen in modern times,” Burden said.

“To think that there might be no ramifications of that really would be shocking,” he said, “and, I think, at odds with how the American criminal justice system has typically operated.”

*Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander atashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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AN 12 24

Two of President-elect Donald Trump's former attorneys and one of his former aides have been criminally charged in Wisconsin as part of the "fake electors" plot from 2020.

According to the Guardian, attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and James Troupis, along with Republican operative Michael Roman, have all been charged by Wisconsin's Justice Department with conspiracy to commit a crime and several additional counts of fraud. While Wisconsin has previously pursued civil action as part of the fake electors scheme, this marks the first time the Badger State has filed criminal charges in response to the plot to overturn the 2020 election in the critical battleground state.

The criminal complaint mentioned Chesebro as the brains of the operation, having authored a memo entitled: "The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes." That memo laid out the plan for Republicans to falsely submit their names to seven different swing states as the duly appointed presidential electors, even though President Joe Biden actually won the election in those states.

Chesebro's new charges are particularly noteworthy, as CNN reported in 2023 that Chesebro was cooperating with the fake elector investigations in both Michigan and Wisconsin. He also cooperated with law enforcement in both Arizona and Nevada, and pleaded guilty after Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis indicted him and more than a dozen others in her RICO case. His plea of conspiracy to commit to filing false documents guaranteed no prison time provided he cooperated with Willis' office and testified against his co-defendants.

Andrew Hitt, who was the chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party in 2020, told 60 Minutes earlier this year that he felt pressured to go along with the fake elector plot out of fear of Trump's supporters. And in a 2022 deposition, Hitt said he regularly got threatening calls and emails from both sides of the political aisle, with some demanding to know his exact location.

"If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I would be scared to death," Hitt told journalist Anderson Cooper. "It was not a safe time."

Attorney Scott Grubmann, who represents Chesebro, insistes that his client "never believed" that Trump won the 2020 election despite his role in hatching the fake elector plot.

READ MORE:[Former Trump lawyer and Ga co-defendant now cooperating in 2 new 'fake elector' investigations

Click here to read the Guardian's report in fulL.

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an 6 24

on Wednesday, June 4, the news broke that Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul had filed criminal charges against three allies of former President Donald Trump in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in their state: James Troupis, Michael Roman and Kenneth Chesebro.

Trump himself, however, has not been indicted in Kaul's case, which follows criminal indictments of Trump allies in separate election interference cases being prosecuted by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

On X, formerly Twitter, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) — a far-right Trump loyalist — was quick to attack Kaul's indictment, posting, "This is outrageous. Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin's judiciary. Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny. Democrats are turning America into a banana republic."

In an op-ed published by MSNBC's website on June 7, Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes lays out some reasons why Kaul's case presents an "awkward situation for Wisconsin's senior senator." And they involve the fake electors scheme in Wisconsin.

"According to this week's indictment, after a meeting at the Wisconsin Capitol on December 14, 2020, where Trump electors signed the fake certificates, Chesebro and Troupis arranged for the documents to be flown to Washington by a young GOP volunteer," the Wisconsin-based Sykes explains. "According to the charging document, the young aide sent a January 5 text message saying, '5 mins until I make the drop' and added, 'I feel like a drug dealer.' She later told '60 Minutes' that when she handed the certificates to Chesebro, the attorney took 'a dramatic step back and looked at me and said: You might have just made history.'"

Sykes continues, "This is where Johnson comes in. According to the House January 6 Committee, Johnson connected Troupis with his chief of staff, Sean Riley, who texted (Mike) Pence staff member Chris Hodgson at 12:37 p.m. on January 6, (2021) saying, 'Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise'…. Riley told Hodgson that they hoped to deliver an 'alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn't receive them.'"

But an aide for then-Vice President Pence, Sykes notes, told Riley, "Do not give them to him."

In a text sent to Johnson on January 6, 2021, Troupis said, "We need to get a document on the Wisconsin electors to you for the VP immediately."

Sykes argues, "The new documents shred his tortured explanations, and the new criminal charges guarantee that he will face more questions — a lot more questions — about what he knew and when he knew it."

*Charlie Sykes' full column for MSNBC is available at this link.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4138124-trumps-fake-electors-7-states-he-lost/

no lnx

What’s happening with Trump’s ‘fake electors’ in 7 states he lost

BY NICK ROBERTSON - 08/04/23

Former President Trump was arraigned Thursday on four charges alleging that he attempted to orchestrate a scheme of fraudulent electoral college votes to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In seven states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — so-called “fake electors” signed paperwork attempting to cast electoral college ballots for Trump instead of their states’ actual winner, President Biden.

The groups hoped that former Vice President Pence would count the fake electors’ certifications instead of the legitimate ones when the electoral college vote was certified on Jan. 6, 2021, changing the result of the election, the indictment alleged. None were successful.

Here’s what each state is, and isn’t, doing to investigate and prosecute them.

Arizona

A group of 22 Arizona Republicans, including the Republican Party chair and multiple state legislature members, signed papers intending to cast false electoral college votes in December 2020. That paperwork is now the focus of both a federal and state investigation.

State Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) ratcheted up her investigation into the group in July, requesting records from involved figures. The investigation is in its early stages.

Figures surrounding the case also received federal subpoenas for information and communication, according to local media.

Georgia

On the day that Georgia certified its electoral results in favor of Biden, 16 Republicans — led by the state’s Republican Party chair — allegedly met in a secret meeting in the state capitol to discuss plans to send an alternate slate of votes to Washington. The group also signed paperwork making their plans official.

The scheme is central to prosecutor Fani Willis’ (D) state probe into attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which may result in an additional indictment for Trump.

At least eight of the fake electors have signed immunity deals with Willis’ office, offering to cooperate in exchange for not being prosecuted.

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An independent reporter, who briefly barged in on the meeting, was called to testify to a grand jury debating whether to charge Trump, his attorney Rudi Giuliani and others this month.

The investigation is effectively complete, Willis said, and a grand jury is expected to decide on whether to charge Trump and others by the end of August.

Uniquely, the probe has also investigated Trump and his allies’ actions in other states.

The Georgia probe is the most significant of any state’s investigation into 2020 election meddling and is the only known case where Trump himself is a target of an investigation.

Michigan

FILE – Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks during a news conference in Detroit, Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021. Published reports say Nessel’s office is asking that a special prosecutor investigate whether the Republican candidate for state attorney general, Matt DePerno, and others should be charged in connection with an effort to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election. DePerno has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. (Max Ortiz/Detroit News via AP, File)

A group of 16 Michigan Republicans was charged with crimes related to a fake electors scheme last month, concluding an investigation by state Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) which began again in January.

Nessel initially referred the charges to federal prosecutors in early 2022 but pursued a state case again after federal officials failed to pursue charges after a year.

The group met in the basement of the state Republican Party headquarters and signed documents claiming to be electoral college voters, prosecutors allege. Some of them later showed up at the state capitol and attempted to cast electoral college ballots.

Three of the state’s rightful electors filed a civil suit against the group of 16 in January, requesting $25,000 in damages claiming they suffered humiliation and harassment due to the group’s fake elector scheme.

The scheme is separate from another investigation into attempts to break into voting machines in Michigan. A former GOP attorney general candidate, a state legislator and a prominent Trump campaign lawyer were charged this week in that case.

Nevada

FILE – Nevada State GOP Chairman Michael McDonald announces President Donald Trump before he speaks the Nevada Republican Party Convention at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino Saturday, June 23, 2018, in Las Vegas. New transcripts released on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, by the House Jan. 6 committee reveals Donald Trump and his allies played a direct role in the Nevada Republican Party’s phony elector scheme in 2020. The transcripts show McDonald invoked his Fifth Amendment protection 275 times when he was interviewed in February. (AP Photo/L.E. Baskow, File)

In the Silver State, a half dozen Republicans met in Carson City, Nevada, to organize their own fake elector scheme after the 2020 election.Among them was state GOP chair Michael McDonald, the focus of federal investigators in Nevada.

McDonald’s phone was seized and searched by the FBI in 2022 and he and another elector testified to both the House Jan. 6 committee and for special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation.

Both McDonald and the second fake elector, Nevada Republican Party official Jim DeGraffenreid, were given “limited immunity” due to their testimony.

The Nevada scheme was allegedly headed by former state attorney general and GOP Senate candidate Adam Laxalt.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D)declined to pursue a criminal investigation of McDonald, Laxalt and others.

New Mexico

FILE – New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas talks during a news conference on Feb. 26, 2019, in Albuquerque, N.M. Balderas is asking that changes be made to rules proposed by the U.S. government as it processes damage claims from a historic wildfire sparked by forest managers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

New Mexico was a last-minute addition to fake elector plans, Smith’s 45-page indictment alleges.Despite being a state that Biden won comfortably — by about 100,000 votes or nearly 10 percent — the state GOP sent its own electors to vote for Trump, citing pending litigation in other states.

The Republican’s five electors were turned away when they attempted to vote in the state capitol of Santa Fe, but they also signed paperwork asserting a false right to make electoral college votes.

Two of those five voters testified for the House Jan. 6 committee last year, and the New Mexico Secretary of State met with Smith’s investigation team last month.

An eventual suit from the Trump campaign contesting New Mexico’s results was purely a pretext for the elector’s scheme, Smith’s indictment alleges.

State Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) started an investigation into the group in January 2022, but like in Michigan, referred the case to federal prosecutors. There has been no public action in either a state or federal investigation since.

Pennsylvania

MANHEIM, PA – OCTOBER 29: Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Governor Doug Mastriano, (L) his wife Rebecca, and (R) Republican candidate for Lt. Governor Carrie DelRosso addresses the media after a rally at Spooky Nook Sports Complex on October 29, 2022 in Manheim, Pennsylvania. Mastriano faces Democratic challenger Josh Shapiro in the November election. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

Fake electors in Pennsylvania include 20 Republicans who planned to contest the state’s results in the 2020 election. Among them were former Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Penn.) and the vice chair of the state GOP.

The point person for the group was state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who went on to be the Republican nominee for Governor in 2022, losing to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D).

But the Pennsylvania electors inserted a line into their signed vote document that makes them unique from other states. Their document reads that the votes would only be valid if they are recognized as “duly elected and qualified electors,” which they were not.

In 2022, Shapiro — then the state attorney general — citing that language, said the group’s actions were likely not criminal and that the state would not investigate them.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers speaks during the annual State of the State address Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)

Attempts to overturn election results in Wisconsin embroiled Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), whose staff allegedly assisted his state’s slate of fake electors. Johnson has declined any knowledge of the incident.

Ten Wisconsin Republicans signed documents claiming to be electors casting votes for Trump after the 2020 election.

The group drew the ire of Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Friday, who said he wants them prosecuted.

At a press conference Thursday, Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) said his office is tracking the federal investigation into Trump but has not said if the state is investigating the fake elector scheme itself.

Kaul said that the group should be held accountable for their actions and that “further developments” will come.

The fake electors also face a $2.4 million civil lawsuit set to go to trial in September 2024 over their actions.

TAGS 2020 ELECTION FRAUD ARIZONA DANA NESSEL DONALD TRUMP FAKE ELECTORS FAKE ELECTORS FANI WILLIS GEORGIA GEORGIA PROBE HECTOR BALDERAS JACK SMITH JOE BIDEN JOSH KAUL JOSH SHAPIRO LOU BARLETTA MICHAEL MCDONALD MICHIGAN MIKE PENCE NEVADA NEW MEXICO PENNSYLVANIA RON JOHNSON TONY EVERS TRUMP INDICTMENT WISCONSIN

https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/11/19/democratic-ag-midterm-climate-change/

Nearly lost in the sometimes breathless coverage of the massive Democratic gains in the House of Representatives and state legislatures was a political sea change in the recent midterm election: for the first time in years, Democrats gained control over the levers of environmental law in four critical states.

In four formerly reliably Republican states—Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin and Nevada—GOP attorneys general were ousted by Democratic challengers.It is a development, observers say, that represents a stunning defeat for the oil and gas industry, which poured millions of dollars into those campaigns. And it could alter the landscape for several high-profile cases that seek to hold the industry accountable for the ravages of climate change.

“Democratic AGs now hold 27 offices,” said Lizzie Ulmer, communications director for the Democratic Attorneys General Association. “That puts us in the majority.”

The Democrats’ gains on Nov. 6 give them precisely the slim majority the Republicans used to hold. Among the ousted were some staunch supporters of the fossil fuel industry.

The question is whether this new coalition of Democratic attorneys general will act en masse, launching investigations and filing suits as a coordinated bloc, as their Republican predecessors did.

Throughout most of the Obama administration, the GOP attorneys general formed a united front. They challenged the Democratic administration on a host of issues, from health care to critical environmental issues like the Clean Power Plan, which sought to leverage market forces to cut carbon emissions, and the Waters of United States rule that gives federal regulators a larger role in regulating tributaries to major navigable waterways, which previously had been beyond federal reach.

“They were very coordinated in their efforts to be a bloc and to be obstructionist during the Obama administration,” Ulmer said. As Texas Gov. Greg Abbott once described his former job as the state’s attorney general: “I go into the office, I sue the federal government and I go home.”

Even when they were in the minority, however, Democratic attorneys general have been active, especially since the beginning of the Trump administration. They have, either separately or as a team, sued the administration 38 times, with some, like California’s recently re-elected Xavier Becerra, proving particularly litigious. Becerra was involved in 24 of those cases and has won 14 of them.

Those lawsuits are likely to continue, and the new crop of Democratic attorney generals could bolster their ranks and file a few more of their own.

That’s particularly likely in a place like Michigan, where Democrat Dana Nessel easily defeated Tom Leonard, the heir apparent to Republican Bill Schuette, who unsuccessfully ran for governor. Under Schuette, Michigan was among the most ferocious states in its support of the oil and gas industry, filing an amicus brief, for example, backing Exxon against a landmark lawsuit filed by New York State alleging that the company defrauded investors by hiding the risks of climate change. In the brief, Schuette declared climate change to be “unsettled science.”

Many expect Michigan will do an about-face, said Lisa Wozniak, executive director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. In a state that is still coping with the fallout from the catastrophic lead contamination of Flint’s water supply, Nessel ran on an aggressive environmental platform. A cornerstone of her campaign was a pledge to use the full force of the office to decommission the 65-year-old Enbridge 5 pipeline, which carries tar sands oil from Canada under the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. “It’s been deemed one of the most serious threats to the Great Lakes and our drinking water,” Wozniak said, “but I’d also say that it’s intimately linked to climate since it is carrying tar sands.”

A larger questions is whether Nessel would consider joining New York and Rhode Island in their liability suits against the industry. “I know she cares deeply about energy policy and climate change,” Wozniak said. “And while she has not specifically said that she’s going to be joining those cases I would not be surprised if she did.” Nessel declined to comment for this story.:{

In neighboring Wisconsin, Josh Kaul unseated another of Exxon’s chief allies, Republican Brad Schimel. That gave the party dominance in the upper Midwest because in Minnesota, Rep. Keith Ellison will replace fellow Democrat Lori Swanson and Illinois also replaced its incumbent with another Democrat, Kwame Raoul. :{

}::{

}:The oil and gas industry also lost an ally in Nevada, where outgoing Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt had emerged as a key foe of New York’s lawsuit against Exxon. Nevada voters rejected both Laxalt’s bid for governor and elected Aaron Ford, a Democrat, over Laxalt’s hand-picked successor, Wes Duncan.

Democrats also picked up a seat in the gas-rich state of Colorado, where Democrat Phil Weiser defeated Republican George Brauchler. Weiser has not made clear how aggressively he intends to pursue climate-related cases and investigations. Weiser’s office did not immediately respond to a request for an interview, but in the past, the University of Colorado Law School professor has expressed skepticism about the suits filed against oil and gas producers. Three Colorado communities, including the City and County of Boulder, have filed liability suits against Exxon and Suncor.:{

}::{

}:And it remains unclear whether the ever-litigious Becerra, who in the two years since he succeeded Kamala Harris as California’s AG, will join lawsuits against Exxon and other oil producers. He has remained noncommittal on that topic, so it remains to be seen whether that changes now that he has a mandate from the voters.

What is clear is that the new class of attorneys general is taking office at a time when their colleagues have already begun the spade work on some novel approaches to holding fossil fuel producers accountable for the effects of climate change.

In addition to the New York suit, which relies on a 1921 anti-fraud act aimed at curbing Wall Street excesses, and a suit by Rhode Island, which uses its anti-nuisance laws to hold 14 oil and gas companies liable for pollution, Massachusetts is using consumer protection laws to argue that the industry’s failure to alert the public to the long-term risks of its products amounted to false and unfair advertising.

“One thing that’s really interesting in working with Democratic attorneys general across the country is that every office is a little bit different in how it’s structured, what powers they’ve been given, what their budgets are, what sort of authority they have,” Ulmer said. “When it comes to issue-specific questions, it truly is going to depend on the state.

“But I can tell you a number of these candidates have talked about the importance of climate change, protecting the environment, protecting natural resources, making sure that the citizens of their states have clean water and really clean air and protecting the future during their campaigns. We know that’s something they’re going to continue…once they’re fully transitioned into office.”