Wisconsin judge rules Trump aides must face trial in 2020 fake elector scheme

MADISON, Wis. – A Wisconsin judge ruled Monday there is enough evidence to proceed to trial in a felony forgery case against an attorney and an aide to President Donald Trump for their role in the 2020 fake elector scheme.

The charges relate to attempts by the former aides to present a slate of Republican electors to Congress falsely claiming that Trump had won Wisconsin that year even though he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive.

Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland ruled that there was probable cause to proceed with the 11 felony forgery charges against Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s campaign attorney in Wisconsin, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.

Those charged claim they committed no crime and were just trying to keep their options alive in case a court ruled that Trump had actually won the state.

“That’s not a forgery,” Troupis’s defense attorney Joe Bugni said.

But the judge said communication from the defendants showed their intent to present as legitimate a certificate awarding Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes to Trump, not a document to be accepted only if a court ruled that Trump won the state.

The preliminary hearing of a third person charged, former Trump attorney Ken Chesebro, was postponed amid questions about what statements the man made to prosecutors that could be admitted in court.

The judge said he wanted to hold a separate hearing on whether comments Chesebro made in an agreement with Wisconsin investigators were allowed to be admitted at trial.

Chesebro made his comments to investigators voluntarily and there was no immunity agreement given to him in exchange for talking, said Assistant Wisconsin Attorney General Adrienne Blais.

She called the move by Chesebro’s attorney to not allow his comments at the preliminary hearing “a clear sandbag.”

The Wisconsin charges, brought by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul’s Department of Justice, allege that the three defrauded the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020.

The state’s only witness, a special agent with the state Department of Justice, detailed the allegations.

Prosecutors contend Troupis, Chesebro and Roman lied to the Republicans about how the certificate they signed would be used as part of a plan to submit paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence, falsely claiming that Trump had won the battleground state that year.

A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said. Also, a majority said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.

Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Harvard Law School, was the only person to testify for the defense.

Lessig said that if a court ruled later that Trump had won Wisconsin, the state’s 10 electoral votes could only have been awarded to him if a certificate was submitted on time signed by the Republican electors.

“I don’t see how anybody could fairly conclude that’s fraudulent,” he testified.

Monday’s hearing came a week after Troupis alleged misconduct by the judge and tried unsuccessfully to get him to step down and move the case to another county. Troupis alleged that the judge did not write a previous order issued in August declining to dismiss the case. Instead, he accused the father of the judge’s law clerk, a retired judge, of actually writing the opinion.

Hyland said he and a staff attorney alone wrote the order. Hyland also said Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he is now being prosecuted, presented no evidence to back up his claims of bias.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegations.

The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them seeking damages.

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This story has been corrected to show that the attorneys who are charged formerly worked on Trump’s campaign, but are still practicing attorneys.