Fogbow

The 59 Republicans Who Joined Electoral Voter Fraud Scheme For Trump Could Face Prison
What seemed like political theater at the time actually violated state and federal fraud laws, according to current and former prosecutors.

S.V. Date
01/27/2022 06:00am EST

WASHINGTON ― Dozens of local and state Republican leaders who showed their loyalty to Donald Trump by casting fake electoral votes for him a year ago may now face prison time in return for that devotion.

Because as the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, starts to look into the origins of the scheme to send “alternate” ballots to Congress from states narrowly won by Joe Biden, the 59 ersatz Trump electors who claimed to be “duly elected and qualified” could face federal charges ranging from election fraud to mail fraud, in addition to a range of state-level charges.

And in two of the states, the Democratic attorneys general are openly calling on the Department of Justice to act.

“I believe it’s critical that the federal government fully investigates and prosecutes any unlawful actions in furtherance of any seditious conspiracy,” said Josh Kaul, attorney general of Wisconsin, where 10 Republicans filed papers claiming to be the state’s electors even though Biden narrowly won there.

“This is a crime,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told reporters earlier this month, adding that calling the elector slate “alternate” did a disservice and that it should be called a “false, counterfeit, fake slate of electors.”



https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fake-ele ... e5f513fa73

Jan. 6 investigators subpoena 14 in probe of false pro-Trump electors
The Capitol riot select panel is seeking details about the organizing of the electors and their meetings.

Stanley Grot: Grot is the Shelby Township clerk and is currently running for the Michigan House. He previously served on the Sterling Heights City Council and as a Macomb County commissioner. He also chairs the 10th District Republican Party. In 2018, he ran for secretary of state but abruptly dropped out of the race, which became the center of an alleged payoff scandal that resulted in Michigan Party Chair Ron Weiser paying a $200,000 state fine for violating campaign finance law.

Leah Hoopes: Hoopes is a small business owner and Republican committeewoman for Bethel Township in Delaware County who served as a poll watcher in 2020. She was named as a defendant in a Delaware County voting machine supervisor’s lawsuit alleging that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that election officials tampered with the election made the supervisor the subject of physical threats.

A U.S. Senate candidate who was one of 11 Arizona Republicans who signed a document falsely claiming he was authorized to cast the state’s electoral votes for President Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that the document was only a contingency plan.

Jim Lamon, who signed the document making the false claim on Dec. 14, 2020, said he understood he was only asserting himself as one of Arizona’s official electors in case the results were decertified.

“The Republican electors put forth a valid document that said, in the event that the election certification was overturned, there would be no excuse not to recognize those electors,” Lamon said during an interview that aired Sunday on KTVK-TV’s “Politics Unplugged” program.

The document Lamon signed contained no language that explained it was a backup plan.

Rather, the document described Lamon and the other 10 signees as the “duly elected and qualified electors” from Arizona.

They were not.

* * *

Lamon said that, under his understanding, the document would only have an effect after several events occurred, including Ducey deciding to decertify the results from Arizona. That might have occurred, he said, based on the findings of the review of ballots from Maricopa County that was ordered by the Arizona Senate.

Two of the seven documents, as obtained by American Oversight, contained language that specified they would only be valid in such an event that the official results were overturned. Arizona’s document did not contain any wiggle room. It flatly stated that the 11 represented the state’s vote in the Electoral College.

In a video posted the day after the Dec. 14, 2020, signing at the state Republican headquarters, the chairperson of the party, Kelli Ward, asserted the signees were Arizona’s “true” electors.

bob wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:25 pm Ariz. Rep.: US Senate candidate Jim Lamon explains why he falsely claimed to be an Arizona elector:

In a video posted the day after the Dec. 14, 2020, signing at the state Republican headquarters, the chairperson of the party, Kelli Ward, asserted the signees were Arizona’s “true” electors.

This is exactly what I would expect a fake elector to say: It was never intended to be the official certificate. (Notwithstanding the document's language and statements by bigmouths like Ward.)

Brahm Resnik @brahmresnik wrote:RECEIPTS (2/4) State Rep. & phony AZ elector Jake Hoffman asks VP Pence in 1/5 letter to "delay certification of election results & seek clarification from Arizona Legislature re which slate of electors are proper and accurate."

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Steve Vladeck @steve_vladeck wrote: Stop calling them “alternate” electors. It’s not like Hawaii in 1960 when two slates were duly certified.

These were random-ass people who met in a room and declared themselves to be something they weren’t, then fraudulently tried to get counted as representing what they didn’t.

The terms “fake” or “fraudulent” are better, but the real point is that they weren’t “electors” in the first place.

And there’s literally no theory under which they could lawfully have been considered by the Joint Session—no matter *what* you believe was true about the election.

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — FBI agents served a search warrant Wednesday on Nevada’s top GOP official, sources told the 8 News Now I-Team’s George Knapp.

Agents seized the cell phone of state Republican chairman Michael McDonald, reportedly as part of an investigation into the fake elector scheme initiated at the end of the 2020 presidential election.

A second search warrant was issued for state party secretary James DeGraffenreid, who also signed the document, but FBI agents could not locate him Wednesday, sources told Knapp.

In December 2020, the 8 News Now I-Team reported the Nevada Republican Party’s six electors signed paperwork signaling their support for former President Donald Trump in a symbolic ceremony devoid of any legal merit, which was held in Carson City and coincided with the official state-sanctioned tally on Dec. 14, 2020.

The man handing out paperwork appears to be Thomas Lane, who the Times/Post/CNN say has been subpoenaed by DOJ. If you zoom in you can see his name on his Trump jacket.

'Some of the 16 Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming to cast the state's electoral votes for Donald Trump in December 2020 are receiving grand jury subpoenas from federal officials, according to multiple sources.'

Ron Johnson tells us he plans to release a statement today explaining what happened when his aide made an offer of fake MI and WI electors to Pence on Jan. 6.
“We are piecing this together. … You’ll find out what a nothing burger this is. It’s a complete non-story”

“It will all be clear and you’ll never have to ask me this question again,” he said.

“I’m going to give you everything we know. This happened 18 months ago.. My staffs involvement was over the course of minutes. My own personal involvement was probably seconds”
@tedbarrettcnn

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:55 pm Sure a lot of subpoenas (and search warrants) going out for a nothing burger.

Kendra wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:38 pm Former Fed Prosecutor Eli Honig was on CNN, and per his experience, subpoenas do not go out to the targets of the investigation, more so to witnesses and/or someone they'd like to flip.

NEW: On the radio, Ron Johnson says the false electors documents came from Mike Kelly's office. #wisen

Jim wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:19 pm Mike Kelly or Mike Kelley the ex-Wisconsin BB player?

I want to make sure whomever Johnson throws under the bus is properly credited.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:21 pm It's an IMPOSSIBLE^TM burger

roadscholar wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:07 pm

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:21 pm It's an IMPOSSIBLE^TM burger

But it does come with quite a pickle.