MADISON — The case against two of President Donald Trump’s attorneys and a former campaign aide will move forward in Dane County, with an Aug. 22 order from Circuit Judge John D. Hyland denying a motion to dismiss charges that the three participated in a scheme to submit false paperwork claiming Trump won Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony charges in 2024 against Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and lead architect of the 2020 elector scheme; former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who represented Trump in Wisconsin during the 2020 election; and Mike Roman, a former Trump aide who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s slate of false elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer in order to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.
The three face 11 charges relating to felony forgery and forgery meant to defraud the Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump, even though Joe Biden won the state. Each of the 11 charges against the men carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine.
According to the complaint, most of the electors said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won the state without a court ruling saying so. The complaint also describes how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman allegedly created a fake document that said Trump won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver it to then-Vice President Mike Pence for certification.
Federal prosecutors have said the fake electors plot originated in Wisconsin.
“… it does not matter that Troupis disagrees with the facts alleged in the complaint. Most criminal defendants do. Our system resolves these disagreements in a trial — at his trial. Troupis may use history as a way to explain to a jury he never intended to commit forgery. What Troupis may not do, however, is use that history to re-write the criminal complaint,” Hyland wrote in his order denying the request to dismiss.
Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case.
Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.
At the same time, the Republican fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won. They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Chesebro was in the room during the meeting.
At the time, the fake electors said they held the meeting only to ensure the state’s electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state.
In efforts to have the case dismissed, Troupis claimed the electors met and cast their ballot only to preserve their legal options, in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump the winner of Wisconsin, arguing no crime was committed.
“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused with his preferred offense,” Hyland wrote.
The 10 electors have not been charged criminally related to the fake documents. The group settled a lawsuit in 2023 filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the false electors acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.
Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin judge refuses to dismiss charges against Trump attorneys, aide in fake electors case
Reporting by Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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