Michigan GOP calls criminal charges against Trump 2020 electors a “witch hunt.”
The Michigan Republican Party has issued a sharply critical reaction to the Michigan Attorney General’s decision to bring criminal charges against 16 people who signed certificates claiming that President Donald Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election.
“This is a witch hunt designed to prosecute and punish citizens who are duly elected and perform a major function in presidential elections,” said Macomb County GOP Chairman Mark Forton at a July 19 press conference in Lansing.
Mr. Forton’s remarks pertain to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s announcement a day earlier of multiple felony charges against the 16 individuals whom she labelled as “false electors.”
The Michigan AG’s office said that the defendants met at the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed their names on multiple certificates attesting to being the ”duly elected and qualified electors” for President and Vice President of the United States for the State of Michigan.
“That was a lie,” Ms. Nessel said at a press conference Tuesday. “They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors and each of the defendants knew it.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks during a news conference in Lansing, Mich., on March 5, 2020. (David Eggert/AP Photo)
The certificates that the 16 individuals signed were subsequently transmitted to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives in what Ms. Nessel’s office described as a ”coordinated effort” to hand the state’s electoral votes to a different candidate than the one actually elected by the people of Michigan.
“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” Ms. Nessel said in a statement.
Each of the accused faces multiple felony counts that in total carry a maximum penalty of 85 years in prison.
Mr. Forton disputed Ms. Nessel’s characterization of the 16 accused as “false electors.”
“This current quest by the socialist Democrats to eliminate the [Electoral] College is now spilling over to criminally attack a group of 16 legally elected electors on the Republican side for the 2020 election,” he said at the press conference.
“The 16 individuals under attack are not fake electors,” he continued, adding that they were legally elected under Michigan law at convention to represent the Republican Party as electors.
The Michigan AG’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, Ms. Nessel said during a press conference on Tuesday that she is expected to hear claims that the prosecution is politically motivated.
Michigan Democrats, by contrast, praised Ms. Nessel’s decision to bring criminal charges.
“I am so grateful our attorney general stepped up and issued charges against these folks,” said LaVora Barnes, the current Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party,
“These Republicans attempted to undermine the very foundation of our democracy pretending they were indeed the duly elected electors knowing that they weren’t,” she continued. “It’s shocking to me that it happened in the first place.”
Dueling Electors
Following Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Republican electors in seven states—including Michigan—cast alternative slates of votes for Mr. Trump.
Republicans in some of the states said that the rationale for casting alternative slates of elector votes would preserve Mr. Trump’s legal claim for the election as legal challenges made their way through the courts.
The idea of competing or dueling electors is not new in American politics, Mr. Forton pointed out in the press conference Wednesday.
“It’s happened many times in American history by both Democrats and Republicans in contested elections,” he said.
The precedent of dueling electors in U.S. presidential elections was also put forward as an argument by Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and one of the individuals involved.
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