A decision on whether a group of Michigan Republicans will go to trial on a series of election- and forgery-related charges connected to trying to transmit electoral votes for President Donald Trump in 2020 — despite his election loss in the state that year — is now expected in September, according to defense lawyers in the cases.
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9 before Ingham County 54A District Judge Kristen Simmons, who has overseen preliminary examinations for the 15 individuals charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office with signing documents attempting to turn over Michigan’s electoral votes in 2020 to Trump. Prosecutors have argued the group knowingly tried to defraud voters, since former President Joe Biden won Michigan’s election by around 154,000 votes in 2020. Defense attorneys have countered, saying the group was acting at the instruction of Trump campaign lawyers.
Three defense attorneys: Mary Chartier, Michael Bullotta and Paul Stablein, told the Detroit Free Press on July 10 and July 11 that a ruling on whether government prosecutors have sufficiently provided enough evidence to send the cases to a jury trial is expected at the Sept. 9 hearing. Kimberly Bush, director of the Office of Public Information and Education within the attorney general’s office, said over email the court hadn’t specified the purpose of the hearing.
On Dec. 14, 2020, as Democratic electors met in the Michigan Capitol to cast the state’s electoral votes for Biden, a group of Michigan Republicans attempted to enter the building to cast votes for Trump, but was turned away by Michigan State Police. While the group was not able to enter the Capitol, the document its members signed was eventually transmitted to Congress and the National Archives as if Trump had won, according to testimony in the case, although the state’s electoral votes were awarded to Biden.
A Michigan State trooper at the Capitol in Lansing communicates to lawyer Ian Northon that the building is closed during the electoral college vote on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020.
Nessel’s office has argued the group knowingly intended to defraud voters in Michigan by trying to cast electoral votes for Trump, despite his election loss in the state in 2020. Charges were first announced in the probe in July 2023 and the final preliminary examination hearings in the case wrapped up in October 2024. Initially, 16 people were charged but Nessel’s office dropped its case against James Renner in exchange for Renner testifying as a government witness.
The other 15 individuals charged, which include former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock and Republican National Committee member Kathy Berden, all have pleaded not guilty.
During the preliminary examinations, defense attorneys argued their clients were acting at the instruction of attorneys for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Unlike in other states where Trump campaign lawyers were charged by local prosecutors, no charges have been brought against Trump campaign lawyers in Michigan’s fake elector probe.
Renner, who took the stand as a government witness during preliminary exam hearings that took place last year, testified Trump campaign attorneys informed the group they were acting so that in the event that Michigan’s election results were somehow flipped from Biden to Trump, there would be a mechanism for Trump to receive the state’s electoral votes.
Bullotta, a defense attorney representing Rose Rook, one of the defendants in the case, told the Free Press during a May interview that Renner’s testimony indicates a lack of criminal intent from those charged in the case.
“The evidence for my client is that she signed a single signature page without any words on it except her name and her signature, and other people’s names,” Bullotta said, echoing arguments made by the defense during the preliminary exams. “There was nothing else on there, she did not know she was representing herself as a duly elected elector or any such thing. She was told explicitly her signature was required as a contingency in the event that the election flipped to Trump.”
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The forgery-related charges are each punishable by up to 14 years in prison, if convicted, and the election law forgery charges are each punishable by up to five years in prison, if convicted.
Despite Biden’s victory in Michigan and nationally in the 2020 election, Trump and his campaign allies spread baseless theories that the election was somehow stolen. Numerous election audits and lawsuits have found there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Trump won election back to the White House in 2024.
“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 after charges were announced in July 2023. “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.”
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In the case, Nessel’s office has charged: Maddock, Berden, Rook, William “Hank” Choate, Clifford Frost, Mayra Rodriguez, Marian Sheridan, Ken Thompson, Amy Facchinello, John Haggard, Mari-Ann Henry, Michele Lundgren, Stanley Grot, Timothy King and Kent Vanderwood.
Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Decision on trial appears closer in Michigan ‘fake electors’ probe
