Michigan attorney general charges 'false electors' over efforts to overturn the 2020 election

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 360 points – Michigan attorney general charges 'false electors' over efforts to overturn the 2020 election
nbcnews.com

Sixteen people forged documents and claimed to be "duly elected and qualified electors" for the state of Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

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The 16 people being charged in Michigan allegedly met in the basement of the state's Republican Party headquarters and signed multiple certificates claiming they were “the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America for the state of Michigan,” Nessel said in recorded remarks.

“They may have felt compelled to follow the call to action from a president they held fealty to. They may have even genuinely believed that this was their patriotic duty.” She continued, “But none of those reasons or feelings provide legal justification to violate the law and upend our Constitution and our nation’s traditions of representative government, self-determination, and a government by the people.”

So if their defense ends up being "we were just following orders" does that mean they could flip and become witnesses against trump? How many of them, in how many states, would it take before all these charges land in his lap too?

I’m getting the opposite from that quote.

Agreed, its not that they can succeed --- the original quote points out that "none of those reasons or feelings provide legal justification to violate the law". What I was wondering is if this is a HINT that perhaps these folks could testify about why they might have felt it was a call to action from the president. Like, did he literally call them and ask them to commit this crime? Would they testify to that in return for, maybe, having this weak ass excuse be accepted and they don't spend time behind bars?

Anyway, thats what I was wondering. (And of course this is a simplification. Probably a few levels between them and Trump)

Why meet in the basement? Why not a Waffle House? Optics man, they matter.

Waffle House doesn't come this far north unfortunately.

How do you live then?

I think there is some provision in their state law that states the electors have to cast their votes on the grounds of the state capitol.

So basically they were fine with breaking the law when it came to forging elector certificates, but doing it in a waffle house was a legal line even they wouldn’t cross 😂

Let's see who flips first

Unless Trump actually contacted them and told them what to do, I don’t see that much flipping to be done here.

Well it would be surprising if he personally contracted any of them, but it pretty obvious it was managed centrally to a pretty significant degree, and that is likely to roll uphill close enough to be uncomfortable for him.

Unfortunately you usually have to do something in order to do something illegal, and he's gotten out of things over the years mainly through plausible deniability. Plenty of people did overly illegal things here, just a matter of how close to it he got in this case

Seems deranged to do this without some kind of promise of a pardon or similar.

…At the same time, it’s not hard to believe that there are 16+ deranged republicans risking their freedom by conspiring in a basement to own the libs.

Did Trump personally tell them what to do? Probably not. Did they do this on their own without his administration's involvement? Doubtful.

It doesn't have to be trump personally. it could be any one of his cronies like MTG, Boebert, Gym Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Rudy, Mike Pillow, etc. They just need to turn on whoever they were in contact with in order to come up with the plan in the first place. Then follow the chain to the top.

Trump? No, he's not smart enough. But it is odd that this scheme would have happened in more than one state completely organically. So either 1) a whole bunch of people were all equally stupid at the same time (and let's face it, when talking about Trump's supporters that's a fair given) and/or 2) there was some level of coordination, most likely involving John Eastman and other, more scheming individuals in Trump's cabal (Miller? Bannon?).

My bet’s Bannon. I think he’s talked about it on his top-rated podcast, though I’ve never listened.

What do Republicans always say?

  • ignorance of the law is no excuse
  • anyone under indictment shouldn't run for office
  • felons shouldn't be allowed to vote (but in Michaigan they can after serving their time)
  • if you do nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about
  • no one is above the law

AG Nessel don’t fuck about!

Give ‘em hell Dana, that’s what we sent you there to do.

Which state is next?

Reminder that Steve Bannon frankly confessed Trump's Start the Steal conspiracy plans to a group of Trump insiders before the election.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112138665/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript

…audio from Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, surfaced from October 31st, 2020, just a few days before the Presidential election.

Let’s listen. [Begin Videotape]

STEVE BANNON: And what Trump’s going to do is declare victory, right? He’s going to declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner. The Democrats — more of our people vote early that count. Theirs vote in mail. And so they’re going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump’s going to take advantage — that’s our strategy.

He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it’s going to be a firestorm. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier. Because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden’s wining, Trump is going to do some crazy shit.