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John, at Courier
Newsroom our mission is to deliver important and relevant local news
stories to communities that need them most. We pay close attention to
stories involving misinformation — especially when it comes to our
elections.

There’s no better example of this kind of high-quality journalism than
this recent piece from our Michigan newsroom, The Gander. Reporter Kyle
Kaminski recently published the results of an extensive investigation into
attempts by Donald Trump’s insurrectionists to overturn Michigan’s 2020
election results. What he found will be concerning for Michiganders and
all Americans.

[ [link removed] ]Make sure to read Kyle’s reporting below, and if you want to support
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Written By Kyle Kaminski for The Gander
Originally Published July 19, 2023

LANSING—About three weeks before a violent mob of armed insurrectionists
stormed the US Capitol over a so-called “stolen” election, Republicans in
Michigan were allegedly back home cooking up their own scheme to subvert
democracy and keep then-President Donald Trump in office.

Two and a half years later, 16 of those Michigan Republicans are now
facing felony charges filed this week by Michigan Attorney General Dana
Nessel. If convicted, the accused could spend more than a decade in prison
for their alleged misdeeds.

Here’s the Deal:

On Dec. 14, 2020, a group of 16 Michigan Republicans allegedly had a
secret meeting in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party
headquarters in Lansing, where they signed their names to multiple
certificates falsely stating they were the state’s “duly elected and
qualified electors for for the president and vice president of the United
States,” according to Nessel.

There’s only two problems: Trump did not win the election, and these were
not the real electors.

Michigan’s presidential electors—who were constitutionally obligated to
cast their votes for Joe Biden because he won the election by 7 million
votes nationwide, including a clear popular vote majority in Michigan—had
met that same afternoon inside the state Capitol to fulfill their duty to
voters.

But by then, the scheme from the fake Republican electors was already in
motion.

Prosecutors said their false documents were sent on to the US Senate and
the National Archives in what Nessel’s office described as a “coordinated
effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their
choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people.”

The “desperate plan,” as Nessel called it in a statement this week,
failed—miserably. 

Biden was sworn in as president a month later, and every serious challenge
to the 2020 election since has been denied, dismissed, or otherwise
rejected as a conspiracy theory or outright lie. 

And now the Republicans who allegedly orchestrated the plan could face
steep consequences.

In all, Nessel filed 128 separate criminal charges—including forgery and
conspiracy to commit election forgery—against 16 people. The charges could
send each of the defendants to prison for up to 14 years.

“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,” Nessel said in a statement
announcing the criminal charges on Tuesday afternoon. “There was no
legitimate legal avenue or plausible use of such a document or an
alternative slate of electors.”

Who are the Fake Electors?

The group of Republicans who falsely posed as presidential electors
includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in
Michigan, Kathy Berden; Wyoming Mayor Kent Vanderwood; Shelby Township
Clerk Stan Grot, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican
Party, Meshawn Maddock, the wife of state Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford).

Maddock, 55, helped organize buses to travel to DC on the day of the
insurrection, and has repeatedly referred to her work with election and
campaign volunteers as “training an army.” She and her husband also
reportedly told the armed insurrectionists: “We never stop fighting.”

Former Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox has said that Maddock wanted to bring
along a camera crew for the signing “ceremony” of the fake electors. Cox
opposed the idea because she didn’t want the document viewed as a
legitimate attempt to overturn Michigan’s electoral votes.

Many of the other fake electors charged this week have also maintained
relatively prominent roles in Michigan politics, both within and outside
of the state Republican Party, including: 

Marian Sheridan, 69, was recently re-elected by delegates as grassroots
vice chair of the state Republican Party. Michele Lundgren, 73, lost her
state House campaign last year against state Rep. Abraham Aiyash
(D-Hamtramck). Amy Facchinello, 55, is a school board member in Grand
Blanc. Hank Choate, 72, is a Cement City farmer who’s well-known in
agricultural circles, and was awarded as the Michigan Farm Bureau’s
volunteer of the year last year.

Mayra Rodriguez, 64, was the secretary for state’s GOP electors and the
only attorney among the 16 people who signed the fraudulent certificate,
reports the Detroit News. Both Rodriguez and Berden, 70, also refused to
cooperate with a committee that investigated the insurrection. 

Clifford Frost, 75, ran unsuccessfully for state House in 2020 and works
as a real estate agent. John Haggard, 82, is the owner of Haggard’s
Plumbing and Heating in Charlevoix. Mari-Ann Henry, 65, is the treasurer
for the 7th Congressional District GOP Committee. Timothy King, 56, along
with Haggard and Sheridan, was a plaintiff in a failed lawsuit to overturn
the election. 

James Renner, 76, and Ken Thompson, 68, were reportedly acting as
substitutes for those who missed the meeting where the false documents
were signed. Rose Rook, 81, a retired real estate agent, is on the
executive committee of the Van Buren County Republican Party. 

Four of the defendants—Lundgren, Maddock, Sheridan, and Thompson—also
reportedly appeared at the state Capitol to cast their fraudulent votes
but were turned away by the State Police. The average age of the
defendants is about 69. 

What are the Charges?

Election experts say extremists who dispute the results of a valid
election in which there has been no evidence of fraud or manipulation of
voting systems pose a danger of interfering in future elections. They warn
it could trigger chaos if they refuse to accept results they don’t like.

And that’s the reason why Nessel is throwing the book at these 16
Republicans this week. Just because the plan failed and democracy
prevailed, it “does not erase the crimes,” she explained.

“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 this week. “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 Republicans each face two charges of forgery, and one charge of
uttering and publishing, conspiracy to commit forgery, and conspiracy to
commit uttering and publishing. Those four felony charges each carry a
maximum sentence of up to 14 years in prison. They also each face two
counts of election law forgery and one count of conspiracy to commit
election law forgery—a combination of felonies punishable by up to five
years in prison.

In 2021, Nessel referred the issue to federal prosecutors, but it didn’t
result in any criminal charges. In January, Nessel announced she had
reopened her own investigation at the state level—telling CNN that there
was an “overwhelming” amount of evidence to warrant charges against the 16
Republicans who had pretended to be Michigan’s electoral college
delegates. 

“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” she said at the
time.

What Happens Now?

All 16 defendants are set to appear for arraignment hearings in Ingham
County at a date provided to each by the court, according to Nessel’s
office. Phone and email messages seeking comment from several of those
charged were not immediately returned to the Associated Press.

Some of them—like Maddock and Haggard—have told other outlets that they
didn’t believe they did anything wrong, labeling the recent criminal
charges as a “personal vendetta” against them.

In six other battleground states, Trump supporters also signed
certificates that falsely stated he won instead of Biden. The fake
certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to several
investigations—including the House committee that investigated the
insurrection.

Investigations are underway in some other states that submitted fake
electors, but not all.

A Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020
election has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight fake electors.
Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is in the very early stages of a
probe. Nevada’s attorney general has said he won’t bring charges, while
Wisconsin has no active investigation and the attorney general has
deferred to the US Justice Department. There is no apparent investigation
into the fake electors from Pennsylvania.

A group of other Trump allies in Michigan—including former GOP attorney
general candidate Matthew DePerno—are also facing potential criminal
charges related to attempts to bust open sensitive voting equipment after
the 2020 election. A grand jury was convened in March at the request of a
special prosecutor to consider indictments, according to court records. 

The Associated Press contributed to this coverage.





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