MADISON – A state prosecution will proceed against a top architect of an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election on felony charges related to a plan to gather signatures of Republicans falsely claiming to be electors for President Donald Trump.
A Wisconsin judge on Thursday ruled against former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro in his effort to keep statements he made to investigators in other battleground states about the fake elector plan from being introduced in the criminal filed by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul against Chesebro and others over the scheme.
Kaul in 2024 filed 11 counts of felony forgery charges against Chesebro, former Trump campaign attorney Jim Troupis and former Trump aide Mike Roman. The charges allege the three lied to the Wisconsin Republicans who signed paperwork falsely claiming to be electors for Trump in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election for former President Joe Biden.
Troupis and Roman are facing the charges together while the state is trying Chesebro separately. During a December hearing in the case, Chesebro sought to suppress statements he made about the plan to investigators in other states where Republicans signed phony elector documents, claiming he received immunity.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland on April 23 ruled that Chesebro’s statements may be used, as he did not receive any guarantees of immunity.
“No one in the [Wisconsin] interview or its lead-up claimed that Chesebro was being compelled to be interviewed, nor that the interview was other than voluntary,” Hyland wrote in his order.
Justices reject recusal motion from Troupis
The ruling came the same day two Wisconsin Supreme Court justices rejected a motion from Troupis to step aside from the matter.
Troupis, who represented Trump’s 2020 campaign in Wisconsin, filed a motion in February seeking the recusal of Supreme Court Chief Justice Jill Karofsky and Justice Rebecca Dallet over comments the liberal justices made in reaction to a lawsuit Trump filed in 2020 that sought to throw out thousands of ballots cast during that year’s presidential election in the state’s two most populous counties.
Troupis, who argued the unsuccessful 2020 case before the state Supreme Court, is facing felony forgery charges over his role in a scheme to have Republicans in battleground states pretend to be electors for Trump in an effort to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the certification of Biden’s victory over Trump.
The forgery case is now before the state’s highest court because Troupis is seeking a hearing to explore allegations of fraud he has made against Hyland, who oversaw the initial hearings in the case.
Troupis, a former Dane County judge, argued comments made by Karofsky and Dallet about the 2020 case disqualify them from participating.
Biden defeated 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.
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.
The Republicans have 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.
The 10 Republicans who signed paperwork claiming to be electors have not been charged criminally related to the fake documents.
In 2024, the group settled a lawsuit filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the Republicans acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Judge rules against ex-Trump attorney in Wisconsin fake elector case
Reporting by Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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