Michigan Republicans plead not guilty in 2020 ‘fake electors’ scheme

All 16 Republicans allegedly involved in the “false elector” scheme in Michigan after the 2020 presidential election have pleaded not guilty to charges as of Thursday, the state attorney general’s office announced. 

On Thursday, the remaining nine defendants were arraigned on the charges, after the other seven were arraigned in recent days or weeks.

State Attorney General Dana Nessel announced felony charges against the 16 defendants in July, accusing them of signing false certificates that tried to hand the state’s Electoral College votes to former President Trump over now-President Biden. 

The 16 defendants were each charged with eight criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit election law forgery and election law forgery. 

Prosecutors alleged the defendants met Dec. 14 in the basement of the Michigan GOP headquarters and signed their names to documents falsely claiming to be the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors.”

Those certificates were then transmitted to the U.S. Senate and the 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,” according to prosecutors.

Michigan’s Republican national committeewoman, Kathy Berden, was among the nine defendants arraigned Thursday. The others are Clifford Frost, Amy Facchinello, John Haggard, Timothy King, Michele Lundgren, James Renner, Mayra Rodriguez and Ken Thompson. 

Kurt Krause, a defense attorney for Haggard, said he appeared at the arraignment Thursday morning and was “confident that Mr. Haggard’s intent comported with the law.”

“The Constitution protects Mr. Haggard’s First Amendment right to express himself, and the statutes all mandate a specific intent to defraud that Mr. Haggard did not possess. Mr. Haggard has faith that he will be vindicated in a court of law,” Krause said in an emailed statement to The Hill.

All 16 defendants are scheduled to appear next for a probable cause conference Aug. 18. 

In a statement announcing the charges last month, Nessel said, “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.”

“My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election,” she added in the statement.

Some defendants have claimed they did not know what they were signing, and others have claimed that they thought they were signing the certificate just in case a future court decision reversed the decision. 

The so-called “false elector” scheme was mentioned in special counsel Jack Smith’s recent indictment against Trump related to his attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. 

Smith accused Trump’s team of trying to get the GOP electors to sign their names on an alternative certificate for him in order to make a “fake controversy” that would ultimately, according to the theory, provide a reason for then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the valid electoral votes during the ceremonial proceeding on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence refused to comply with the plan.

False electors are also at the center of the Georgia investigation into Trump’s actions, which is widely expected to announce charges next week. Several of the Trump-backing electors in that state have gotten immunity deals in exchange for their cooperation in the probe.

—Updated at 5:02 p.m.