Fifteen Republicans accused of trying to falsely certify President Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in Michigan will not face trial.
District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons dismissed the criminal charges against the group on Tuesday, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The judge explained that she saw no intent to commit fraud, and the defendants had sincerely believed there were problems with the election wherein Joe Biden (D) was declared the winner.
“I believe they were executing their constitutional right to seek redress,” Simmons added.
A survey conducted in early November 2020 showed less than half of the American people believed Biden won the election, per Breitbart News.
It is important to note that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) announced the charges in the so-called “fake electors” case more than two years ago.
On Tuesday, Nessel called Simmons’ ruling “disappointing” and said her office would determine whether or not there would be an appeal. She also claimed the defendants lied and tried to steal millions of votes belonging to Michigan residents, NBC News reported Tuesday.
She then went further and said, “And if they can get away with this, well, what can they get away with next?”
Breitbart News reported in July of 2023 that Nessel announced forgery charges against 16 alternate electors for Trump in 2020 “despite existing precedent — by Democrats — in using alternate electors.”
The article continued:
Nessel, a highly partisan figure who urged President Joe Biden to close a crucial local oil pipeline, and once joked that she wanted “a drag queen for every school,” announced the charges, which are the first of their kind.
…
The Trump campaign created several slates of alternate electors. This was not an attempt to create “fake” or “fraudulent” electors to fool authorities, but rather to provide a legal remedy in the event the election results were overturned. The fear was that if a court, or a state legislature, invalidated the Electoral College vote of Michigan or another closely contested state, those votes would not be awarded to Trump without electors.
Democrats themselves used this strategy in the 1960 election, a close race between Vice President Richard Nixon (R) and Sen. John Kennedy (D-MA).
In a social media post Tuesday, Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak wrote, “The case against the Michigan electors, like all the ‘fake electors’ cases, was bogus from the start.”
“As with the JFK precedent, the goal was not to defraud but to have a substitute set of electors as a remedy if courts ruled their way,” he added.
The group was initially 16 until one man accused in the case agreed to cooperate with the state attorney general’s office, resulting in the charges against him being dropped, the AP article said.
“Prominent Michigan MAGA activist and former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock was one of the accused. Her attorney, Nicholas Somberg, told reporters after the hearing that the case brought by the attorney general’s office was a waste of money and a ‘malicious prosecution,’” the outlet stated.
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