D.C. witnesses testify about Michigan fake electors in court

New witnesses were called Tuesday in the preliminary hearing for six of the individuals charged by the Michigan attorney general for forging false electoral votes for former President Donald Trump.

Tuesday marks the third day of witness testimony for six of the 15 individuals accused by the Attorney General Dana Nessel of willfully trying to subvert the will of Michigan voters who chose Joe Biden as the next president in the 2020 election. 

The accusation is that the individuals charged gathered at the Michigan Republican Party headquarters in Lansing on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed documents falsely addressing themselves the state’s rightful electors and submitting fake electoral votes for Trump to Washington, D.C. 

Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes and thus all 16 of Michigan’s electoral votes.

It was clear that the documents were fake and not the official results of Michigan, said Dan Schwager, who was a lawyer for the secretary of the U.S. Senate at the time.

“There are individual citizens who claim some authority under some interpretation of the Constitution to pass an electoral vote and  they might send that to the President of the Senate,” Schwager said, adding that it’s “not uncommon to get one or two often really wacky submissions from people claiming to be electors.”

Individuals in this grouping of fake electors include some high-profile leaders in the Republican Party, such as Michigan GOP National Committeewoman Kathleen Berden and former Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock. Other defendants include Amy Faccihinello, Michele Lundgren, Mari-Ann Henry and John Haggard. 

Lawyers for the defendants have made different arguments, including asserting that there isn’t proof that the defendants knew what they were signing on Dec. 14, 2020. Attorneys have argued that because the filing sent to the U.S. Senate and National Archives was more than one page, it isn’t guaranteed that everyone knew the breadth of what they signed.

Other defense approaches have included claims that the group was acting in political protest. For the other group of nine defendants, Clifford Frost’s defense has largely been based on the assertion that the group was making a political statement and did not act with fraudulent intent.

“They signed their own names. This is a political protest.. … It is legally impossible, absolutely impossible for these folks who have committed a crime with the facts being alleged,” Frost’s lawyer, Kevin Kijewski, said in October.

Here’s what we know about the charges against the 2020 Michigan fake electors

Schwager confirmed that there are multiple checks and balances to certify election results in D.C., which Kathleen Berden’s lawyer, George Donnini, said showed that what the group did couldn’t have actually created fraud within the electoral process.

“In addition to all these checks and balances that exist for the documentation, we’ve got this very public election that’s out there in the public domain that everybody can see. … So nobody’s gonna fool you as to who won the state of Michigan or the state of Mississippi or the state of doesn’t matter,” Donnini said.

Michigan isn’t the only state that’s investigated false electoral GOP votes. Other states include Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Every state has official things they do with documents that in addition to other measures make it pretty obvious when official electoral counts have been received, said Miriam Vincent, acting Director of Legal Affairs and Policy at the Federal Register Office with the National Archives.

“If we received the package that had a postmark or that had a return address that was other than a state office, we would question it,” Vincient said. “We would then have to verify other aspects of the actual certificate. …. You will have to have the state seal and the actual signature of the governor.”

Vincient said the postmark on the documents she received were from the Michigan Republican Party with no signature from the governor.

Additionally, electoral results are submitted with two documents Vincent said: a certificate of ascertainment and a certificate of votes. Vincient said the archives received a certificate of votes but not the certificate of ascertainment, which would have had the governor’s signature.

Witness testimony will continue on Wednesday during which the prosecution plans to call James Renner of Lansing, who had also been charged by the attorney general initially, but had his case dropped as part of a “cooperation agreement” with the attorney general.