Dana Nessel files felony charges against Trump’s false electors who tried to steal the 2020 election

In the months following the 2020 election – a time when Donald Trump supporters were so angry that their preferred candidate lost that some of them rioted at the Capitol and called for the death of Mike Pence – 16 Trump supporters in Michigan allegedly came up with a plot to help Trump get elected: falsify a certificate that said that Trump actually won the state of Michigan, send it to Congress, and hope that Trump would get Michigan’s electoral votes.

After months of investigation, out Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) has filed felony charges against the MAGA group. The charges include forgery and conspiracy to commit election law forgery.

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Out Attorney General warns “democracy falls” if pro-Trump candidates become election officials

“Not maybe. Not possibly. Certainly,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel warned on the anniversary of January 6.

According to filing documents, the 16 Trump supporters gathered outside the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14, 2020 and signed the fake certificate that said that Trump had won the state, when in reality President Joe Biden had won Michigan by 154,000 votes a month earlier. The fake certificate was sent to the National Archives and Congress.

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The fake certificate said that the 16 electoral voters had met in the Michigan Capitol that day, even though it was actually closed on December 14, 2020. Biden’s electoral voters actually convened in the state capitol building.

Those 16 false electors now each face eight charges, which are two counts of election law forgery, two counts of forgery, one count of uttering and publishing, one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit election law forgery, and one count of conspiracy to commit forgery. The conspiracy charges are connected to how the false electors allegedly worked with several other GOP officials.

Forgery and election law forgery each carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

“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. “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.”

The 16 false electors are mostly older people, with two in their mid-50s and the other 14 ranging in age from 64 to 82. 82-year-old John Haggard told The Detroit News that he was just making “a statement.”

“Did I do anything illegal? No,” he said.

An affidavit filed by Nessel’s office says that the false electors were called to the Michigan Republican headquarters and that people who weren’t chosen to be false electors were blocked from entering. The false electors were told to give up their phones so that no one would record what happened inside. A Trump campaign staffer was present, according to the affidavit.

They then tried to go to the state capitol building but were turned away by police.

Phone records from Republican national committeeperson Kathy Berden – one of the alleged false electors – show that she texted with Haggard after the meeting about Meshawn Maddock, 55, another alleged false elector, who had posted about the December 14 meeting on Facebook.

“Was she not told at the meeting to keep quite [sic],” wrote Haggard.

“Yes we all were,” Berden wrote.

“Right. If she can’t keep quite (sic) after taking the oath what would she do as vice chair?” Haggard replied.

Alleged false elector Michele Lundgren, 73, said that she got a call on December 13, 2020 to go to Lansing and she just went. She said she thought she was signing a sign-in sheet.

“We signed a blank piece of paper,” she said in her defense. “And that’s all can tell you.”

Last year Nessel said that her office had been investigating the alleged false electors and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute, saying that what happened in Michigan was “part of a much bigger conspiracy.” She told Rachel Maddow at the time that the same thing happened in six other states “in what seems to be a coordinated effort between Republican parties.”