MI fake electors face criminal charges
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday filed eight felony charges against each of the 16 fake Trump “electors” who participated in the 2020 scheme to overturn the presidential election results in the state. Prosecutors in Arizona and Georgia are also investigating possible crimes involving the GOP electors scheme, and civil lawsuits are underway in in Michigan and Wisconsin. Somebody had to be first with criminal charges. Nessel wins the prize.
Axios reports, “Among those charged include Kathy Berden, the national committeewoman of the Republican Party of Michigan, and Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.”
In Michigan, each Trump elector was charged with eight criminal counts, including forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery and election law forgery. Some of the counts carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison.
In an online video announcing the charges, Nessel noted the 16 Republicans had submitted paperwork to the Senate, National Archives and elsewhere claiming to be the state’s official electors. “That was a lie,” she said.
“Undoubtedly, there will be those who claim these charges are political in nature,” Nessel said. “But where there is overwhelming evidence of guilt in respect to multiple crimes, the most political act I could engage in as a prosecutor would be to take no action at all.”
The 16 people charged, Nessel said in her statement, transmitted false documents to the United States Senate and National Archives “in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan.”
John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix told The Detroit News he did not believe there was any policy anywhere that prevented voters from making a “statement.”
“Did I do anything illegal? No,” Haggard said.
But the 16 knew what they were doing was at best highly suspect:
Electors in every state met on Dec. 14, 2020, to cast their votes for president. Since Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes, his electors gathered at the state capitol to cast their ballots. Republicans in Michigan had discussed hiding overnight in the state capitol so they could simultaneously have pro-Trump electors cast a competing set of votes, according to testimony former state GOP chairwoman Laura Cox provided to the Jan. 6 committee. Cox rejected the idea.
By then, Republican leaders knew they had lost a court case over the election and legislative leaders had told them they would not further challenge the results, according to an investigator’s affidavit released Tuesday. The Trump electors met at the state Republican Party headquarters anyway to fill out the paperwork while others were kept out of the room. The Trump electors were told not to bring recording devices and were asked to surrender their cellphones to ensure no one recorded what they did, according to the affidavit.
Donald Trump himself invited Michigan legislators to the White House on November 20, 2020. Did he bring them there to persuade them to overturn the election results? Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House of Representatives Speaker Lee Chatfield issued a joint statement after the meeting saying that they had uncovered no information that would change the election’s outcome. They would follow normal procedures.
The 16 are charged with crimes for stepping outside those lines. Nessel filed the state charges after waiting for Department of Justice action that is still pending.
“Had she not taken this action,” writes Jennifer Rubin in her column, “she would have been hard-pressed to pursue future cases involving fraudulent documents submitted to the state or election chicanery.” Presidential pardons do not apply to state convictions, she adds.
White Makes Right
This coordinated effort by Republicans to overturn the 2020 election should appear under Wikipedia’s entry for white privilege. Donald Trump sold himself as a white savior who would restore America to a time when it was “great.” That is, to a time of unquestioned white rule: when men were men, women were barefoot and pregnant, children were seen and not heard, minorities knew their place, and Christianity dominated “lesser” faiths.
That these Michiganders and GOP fellow travelers in other states felt entitled to, as Nessel put it, “the candidate of their choosing,” no matter what the majority of voters wanted, is emblematic of that privilege. As is their belief that, being white, they could get away with it.
So far, they have. That thousands of Trump supporters felt entitled to throw a violent, mob tantrum at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, says everything one needs to know about their level of civic and developmental maturity.
Hundreds of those who participated in that Trump-inspired insurrection have been charged, many convicted, and others face trial. It remains to be seen whether as a group they have learned from the experience. Personal growth is not among the values cherished by this bunch.