Michigan AG Suggests Orange Jumpsuits For State’s Cosplay Electors

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(Image via Getty)

Yesterday, the 16 cosplay Trump 2020 electors from Michigan got a nasty surprise in the form of an eight-count indictment charging them with forgery, uttering or publishing a false, forged, or counterfeit record, conspiracy, and election crimes. Because, as so many Trump-era figures have discovered, f-in’ around is fun, but finding out’s a bitch.

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The indictees are all old enough to know better, with the youngest clocking in at a sprightly 55. Worse still, their ranks include state Republican party officials, a mayor, a school board official, and a town clerk. Nevertheless, when the Trump campaign asked them to disregard President Biden’s 154,000 vote victory margin, even after it was confirmed by multiple recounts, they rushed to comply.

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(It’s perhaps less surprising that the certificate was signed by Timothy King, the named plaintiff in King v. Whitmer, the disastrous Kraken lawsuit that got Sidney Powell and the legal derp squad sanctioned.)

Here they are unsuccessfully attempting to convince a security guard to let them into the state Capitol so they can sign their fake electoral certificate on December 14, 2020.

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BREAKING: Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has charged 16 individuals with felonies in connection with the attempt to submit a slate of pro-Trump electors following the 2020 election. Multiple attempted unsuccessfully to enter the State Capitol on Electoral College vote day pic.twitter.com/JyD81gYQkW

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) July 18, 2023

Their prior plan, which was also thwarted, had been to sleep in the building overnight. As Just Security’s Ryan Goodman points out, that’s because Michigan law specifies that the electors “shall convene in the senate chamber at the capitol of the state at 2 p.m., eastern standard time, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December following their election.”

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Indeed, New York lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, one of John Eastman’s confederates, observed that “Michigan is much more specific about the location in which electors must meet, which could be a bit awkward,” in a December 9, 2020 memo entitled “Statutory Requirements for December 14 Electoral Votes.”

After getting turned away at the Capitol, the electors met in the basement of the RNC headquarters and signed their names on the fake certificate, attesting not only that they were the official electors, but that “we convened and organized in the State Capitol, in the City of Lansing, Michigan, and at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the 14th day of December, 2020, performed the duties enjoined upon us.”

“That was a lie. They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” State Attorney General Dana Nessel said yesterday in a videotaped statement announcing the charges. “They carried out these actions with the hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan’s 2020 election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing, instead of the candidate that Michigan voters actually chose.”

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Nessel also took time to differentiate this case from the oft-cited 1960 electoral certification in Hawaii, when there were ongoing recounts and litigation, necessitating two slates of electors being sworn in: one for Kennedy, one for Nixon.

No state or federal court had provided credence to even a single claim that could have impugned the authority of the rightful slate of Biden electors. The United States Supreme Court itself, the highest court in all of America, had issued an order 3 days earlier declining to hear a challenge to the certification of Michigan’s presidential election. There remained no question of the outcome of this election and no reason to necessitate the creation of a back-up slate of electors, other than to unlawfully overturn the election. That the effort failed, and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the False Electors plot to overturn the election and circumvent the will of Michigan voters.

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Former state GOP chair Meshawn Maddock remained defiant, calling the charges “political persecution” and telling NBC “The democrats know they can’t beat Trump in 24 so they have to use lawfare to try to imprison their opponents.” She also called Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl,” so … consider the source.

In the meantime, the states appear to have run out of patience waiting for Merrick Garland. Nessel referred the electors case to the Justice Department in 2021, but resumed her investigation in 2022 when the DOJ appeared to ignore it. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sent target letters to multiple signatories to her state’s fake electoral certificate. And in Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes has announced that she is looking into that state’s fraudulent electoral certificate as well.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

Topics

Crime, Dana Nessel, Election Law, Government