The state of Michigan filed criminal charges against a group of Republicans who put themselves forward as alternative 2020 electors backing then-President Donald Trump.
(Bloomberg) — The state of Michigan filed criminal charges against a group of Republicans who put themselves forward as alternative 2020 electors backing then-President Donald Trump.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday charged 16 people, including Republican National Committee member Kathy Berden, 70, and state Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, 55. They were charged with forgery, conspiracy and election-law violations and face as many as 14 years in prison if convicted of the most serious counts.
Nessel’s announcement came on the same day former President Donald Trump said he was notified that he is a target in the US Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, signaling that he is likely to be charged with federal crimes. Ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, counting of the electoral votes, Trump and his allies had urged Vice President Mike Pence to count alternative slates from several battleground states instead of the actual ones.
The Michigan Republicans met covertly in the basement of the state Republican Party headquarters on December 14th, 2020, and signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America,” according to Nessel.
The documents were then sent to the US Senate and National Archives in an effort to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump, rather than Joe Biden, who won the state in the election.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement. “That the effort failed and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the false electors plot.”
The case is People of the State of Michigan v. Berden, Case No. 2022-0343234-A, State of Michigan District Court.
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