The 59 Republicans Who Joined Electoral Voter Fraud Scheme For Trump Could Face Prison
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The 59 Republicans Who Joined Electoral Voter Fraud Scheme For Trump Could Face Prison
Because as the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, starts to look into the origins of the scheme to send “alternate” ballots to Congress from states narrowly won by Joe Biden, the 59 ersatz Trump electors who claimed to be “duly elected and qualified” could face federal charges ranging from election fraud to mail fraud, in addition to a range of state-level charges.
And in two of the states, the Democratic attorneys general are openly calling on the Department of Justice to act.
“I believe it’s critical that the federal government fully investigates and prosecutes any unlawful actions in furtherance of any seditious conspiracy,” said Josh Kaul, attorney general of Wisconsin, where 10 Republicans filed papers claiming to be the state’s electors even though Biden narrowly won there.
“This is a crime,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told reporters earlier this month, adding that calling the elector slate “alternate” did a disservice and that it should be called a “false, counterfeit, fake slate of electors.”
In her state, 16 Republican office holders and party officials filed paperwork claiming then-President Trump had won the state even though he had lost it by 154,000 votes. “This is election fraud, and it’s many other crimes as well, both, I believe, at the state and the federal level.”
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco on Tuesday confirmed to CNN that Justice Department prosecutors “are looking at those” but would not comment further.
Arizona, where 11 Republicans filed papers falsely claiming to be the state’s electors; Georgia, which had 16; and Nevada, which had six, account for the rest of the 59.
Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, though, said he and the other 15 Georgians who sent electoral votes for Trump did so only to make sure Trump could continue pushing a lawsuit alleging vote fraud.
“There’s been no credible suggestion that there’s anything wrong,” he told HuffPost. “We made it very clear what we were doing. We did it right out in the open.”
But Georgia’s would-be GOP electors chose not to include language clarifying that they would actually only be the “duly elected and qualified” electors in the event that a court challenge or other proceeding reversed the outcome there ― the approach taken by Trump slates in two other states.
Five New Mexico Trump supporters filed a “certification” that began: “We, the undersigned, on the understanding that it might later be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors ...”
And 20 Republicans in Pennsylvania went even further to make clear that their paperwork was not valid unless the Nov. 3 election result was reversed in their state. “We, the undersigned, on the understanding that if, as result of a final non-appealable Court Order or other proceeding prescribed by law, we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified electors,” their paperwork began.
That proviso was key to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s decision not to prosecute the 20. “These ‘fake ballots’ included a conditional clause that they were only to be used if a court overturned the results in Pennsylvania, which did not happen,” he said in a statement. “Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery.”
According to Shafer, it was Trump’s lawyers in Georgia who told him and his group that any changes to the language they had provided would endanger Trump’s legal challenge in state court alleging fraud and other election “irregularities.”
“We were told not to alter the form,” he said, but pointed to an accompanying statement on Dec. 14, 2020, the date of the Electoral College vote, that explained that the GOP slate was being sent to Congress and the National Archives only to “preserve [Trump’s] rights under Georgia law.”
Still, the decision not to include explanations along those lines in the actual documents the five GOP slates sent to Washington, D.C., may prove costly should federal prosecutors zero in on Shafer and the 58 others.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Vice President Mike Pence conduct a joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College votes for the 2020 presidential election in the House chamber on Jan. 6, 2021. Soon after, Donald Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to circumvent the process. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)
Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, said the potential federal crimes include forgery, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to commit fraud and, because the material was sent to its recipients via the Postal Service, mail fraud. The more serious of the offenses carry prison terms as long as 20 years.
“That’s not an exhaustive list,” he said, adding that the potential penalties could help prosecutors get some of those involved to provide information as to how the scheme came together and implicate those planners. “They are far more likely to cooperate if the DOJ leveraged them…. These folks should all be charged yesterday.”
The source of the scheme, however, was clear even as it was unfolding. The Trump White House was pushing it openly while outside adviser Steve Bannon was promoting it almost daily on his podcast. On the actual day of the Electoral College vote, top White House aide Stephen Miller laid it out it on a Fox News appearance .
“As we speak, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote, and we are going to send those results to Congress,” Miller said.
Miller hung up Wednesday when contacted by HuffPost about that statement.
The White House’s plan for those “alternate” slates nevertheless was made clear in a memo by lawyer John Eastman, who presented it to Trump himself in the Oval Office. Because some states had “competing” slates of electors, Vice President Mike Pence could simply not count either set and leave those states out of the total entirely. “There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected,” Eastman wrote.
Trump’s tweets in that period suggest that he, too, was fully aware of the alternate slate scheme as he repeatedly urged Pence to abuse his authority as presiding officer during the certification ceremony.
“The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” he wrote, falsely, on Jan. 5.
“Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures,” Trump wrote in an early morning Twitter message on Jan. 6. “Mike can send it back!”
Just hours later, at his rally that preceded a violent assault on the Capitol, Trump several times repeated the false claim that Pence could, by himself, give Trump a second term.
“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” he told the thousands of followers he had urged to come to Washington for the occasion.
Pence, when he began the roll call of states, then made clear he also was aware of the scheme by modifying the script to purposefully ignore the fraudulent pro-Trump certifications.
Instead of asking the designated tally-keepers to “count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors of the several states,” as then-Vice President Biden had instructed four years earlier, Pence told them to “announce the votes cast by the electors for each state, beginning with Alabama, which the parliamentarian has advised me is the only certificate of vote from that state and purports to be a return from that state that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors.”
Because only the true electors had such a certificate attached, that necessarily excluded the fraudulent Trump slates.
Because that day was quickly consumed with the violent mob assault on the Capitol intended to stop the election certification altogether and was soon followed by Trump’s impeachment for inciting it, the fact of the “alternate” slates faded from view ― until the Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack began referencing it in documents, which prompted renewed media interest in the certificates themselves.
“When we had a minute to breathe, we said, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s pretty damn criminal,’” Kirschner said.
Nessel, who referred her case to federal prosecutors two weeks ago because it would be easier for them to investigate what appears to be a multi-state conspiracy, said she does not relish the thought of going after the 16 Trump electors in Michigan, a group that includes state lawmakers and state party officers ― but that she will if the Department of Justice does not.
“If I have to prosecute, I will,” she told reporters. “It turns out that the biggest fraud seems to have been perpetrated by those who were claiming fraud in the first place.”
She added that treating the fake certifications as no big deal would send exactly the wrong message.
“We can’t have people say, ‘You know what, I can do whatever I want. Because look what these 16 individuals did. They got away with it. Nothing happened to them,’” she said. “Maybe next time it will work. We can’t have that.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
In the realm of wishful thinking Democrats are always one unicorn away from being over the rainbow.
Midterms are a reality Democrats do not want to face.
Prove it!
I expect the GOP to recover ground at the midterms. This is the typical ebb & flow and since Biden has not hit the ball out of the park, there is nothing I can see that would counteract that natural dynamic.
As Alex Jones said after taking the fifth 100 times at his Jan 6 committee testimony , "they have everything".
It becomes more clear every day that the committee will prove beyond a doubt that Trump forces tried to steal the election.
The question is, what will America do about it?
ppppphhhhwwww...
probably fuck all
Nothing. We are too busy gazing at our navels.
We will continue to bicker and fight, in our own petty ways about our own supposed differences until somebody sweeps us off the stage and into the Bards dustbin.
Since before the beginning of Trump's Presidency, we have not even been able to agree on what a fact is, preferring to allow others to present their opinions as facts. Reportage and journalistic integrity has been smeared by the former president, replaced with abundant sources of false and misleading information. The weak minded among us flock to these sites out of an urge derived from the playground: I must be picked! I must be Affirmed! I must be right, because if I am not right, then I am wrong.
No grey areas.
No areas in need of clarification or exposition.
Black/White. Right/Wrong.
Everyone fall in line with your party and follow us to our doom.
Reportage and journalistic integrity has been smeared by the very companies charged with reporting the news. Even the NYT is pushing more OP/Eds as news. It's another sick symptom feeding the fragmented populism of only reading what people agree with.
To a certain extent. A bit of over-reaction by the MSM to continued attacks on their veracity. To tell the truth, I cannot see how pandering to a party could be seen as good business practice, but the growth of distorted, patently false information that passes as news is, IMO, embarrassing and disgusting.
News is news. Opinion is opinion. Just tell me who what when where and after that let me figure out the rest.
YES! Little irritates me as much as clicking on an article, only to find that the underlying source info is not linked, cited, etc. Problem is, that's likely not going to change, because we are surrounded by people that are all too happy to have someone else tell them what they should think about something they don't need to read.
The trending patterns of internet and media usage show we are surrounded by people who are all too happy to have someone else confirm what they already "believe" and pose it as "fact" whether is, or is not, actual fact. Hence the term "alternative facts" coined by Kelly Conway. And they want it in simple, quick to digest, bite sized chunks.
Well that personality trait...is definitely a major factor in the success of social media sites.
Or-- perhaps the reverse is true?
Or maybe...both!
(Your basic "Feedback Loop"...as programmers might call it)
This is why I stick with NPR and PBS.
that got a giggle out of me, too
Your failure to read and/or comprehend the entirety of my comment, and the comment it was made in response to, is showing.
Yes. So, there is no incentive to read or view the underlying information really, and the cycle will likely continue. Just confirm my beliefs, so I can post a meme about it.
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Jail time sounds like the perfect solution for the traitors.
I'm going to enjoy watching these cowards throw each other under the bus to save their own dumb asses.
Most of them have already thrown Trump under the bus by claiming it was all under his orders (which it was).
That statement right there is the key. Mike Pence's duty that day was to certify the results. Not do any grandstanding, decertify electors, whatever. Now we all know that trmp doesn't know the US Constitution from a hole in the ground, but I'm certain he knew what Pence's job was that day...and that was not to overturn the results..."the right thing to do" in his muddled brain
but I'm certain he knew what Pence's job was that day
Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to be Sec. of Education. I’m pretty sure he has no conception of what anyone’s job is supposed to be in government.
Please forgive me. I just slapped myself upside my head
He knew what they were for: How can I make the most money possible for me and my friends.
It is just not what we thought they were for....
No matter what else can be said about Pence, he did do the right thing at the end. He did not do what Trump wanted him to do.
Yes, he did. He earned my respect that day
At least he asked. It's like me with the people I work with. I would rather they ask than go off half-coked and do it all wrong and end up with a violation
True.
(And I imagine that totally freaked out Trump, but also many of his sycophants!)
I learned a long time ago in the Navy that the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
This is nothing more than a wishful thinking article from the Huffington post. When the title changes from "could" to "will" then it might be more in the real world.
Check the bias ratings for Huffington Post. They all show it to be heavily leftist liberally biased. That says it all.
Might be biased but what does that matter if the facts they present are "real" facts and not "alternative" facts
I never said anything to or responded to you or personally disputed you. I was stating a opinion I have the right to express whether you or anyone else agrees with it or not. As to how tiresome it may be and how much it may piss you off, I don't care. That is solely your problem not mine so deal with it.
Bias means slanted to favor only one side's point of view. I favor centrist points of view with only a slight lean to either side. To me, those are fairest viewpoints.
Deal with it. You disparage right wing sources every day
Facts tend to have a liberal bias.
Bingo!
Only to leftist liberals.
"Right Down the Center "....
Given that the GOP still is (in aggregate) supporting Trump in spite of his Big Lie con-job where he tried, for the first time in our history, to steal a presidential election, I would not be surprised if this seed turns out to be fundamentally true.
If I had not witnessed the GOP sell its soul (for over a year now) in support of a demonstrable lying narcissist I would have dismissed seeds like this. Sadly, this might actually be true.
While I agree with you in principle, as deplorable as Trump may have been, we as a nation are still stuck with the individual the Democrats managed to get elected and the ensuing fiascos in the last year. And for the record, no matter how much I detest Biden as well, I do believe he was fairly elected as POTUS.
Trump’s decision to try to keep the stock market (and the economy) stable by talking down the pandemic was instrumental IMO to his loss. He might have weathered the storm of COVID-19 if he had put the country first (rather than his short-term concerns / fears about reelection) by getting in front and leading the charge for the USA to take the virus seriously and engage in precautions while science pursued more permanent solutions.
But he did not do so and in result the opposing party prevailed. Why the Ds could not put forth a better candidate than Biden is an interesting and important question. Also, why the GOP continues to fail to put forth a better candidate than Trump is equally interesting and important.
No more water left in the well?
I saw plenty of interesting candidates on the left, but the feeling of the Democratic Party leaders was to stick with name recognition, so Biden got pushed, and most of the primary voters followed along with the party because there was one think on their minds: No matter who gets elected, it won't be Trump. I would have voted for a cold cadaver instead of Trump if I had thought that it would win because of the tremendously large character flaws of Trump and the way that he rode roughshod over precedent, and how he comported himself. Truly hideous.
The fact that at this point after the election that so very many republican voters have swallowed, hook, line and sinker the Big Lie to the point where it has become a prerequisite (Really?!?!?!? I mean, REALLY?!?!?!) for participation in the republican party is distressing in the utmost. How are sane, reasoning individuals this gullible?
To model oneself after Trump is to model oneself on his character flaws as well. Because that is all that he had going for him. That and some hyper-ginned up fear of some boogie men. If you look at the current list of wannabe Trumpets, they bear too much resemblance to Trump for my liking, and they stoke the fires of divisiveness with every word that they speak.
It IS maddening. In social forums such as NT one can challenge people who profess such madness. In response they often simply repeat their beliefs (e.g. Trump won but Biden stole the election) no matter how ridiculous and against all evidence. So we can see upfront, close and personal how some (many) can be so caught up in their partisan agendas that they will forego any semblance of intellectual honesty and integrity and just double down on the bullshit. It is incredible (and disgusting) to watch this happening in our nation.
TiG, sad to think that Bush/Clinton may the be the best of choices we have seen in what, seven elections? I'd say McCain/Obama, but I never gave McCain a chance. He was the Biden of that election to me.
I hear you TRex, but I am going to force myself to be cautiously optimistic.
I am not interested so much in discussing whether or not Biden was the best candidate or not-- but rather explaining how he won.
First of all, its important to remember that the Democratic nomination is not decided by a small group of "wise men" (or women) but by the registered Democrats who voted in the primaries.
Meaning: more Democrats preferred Biden over all others...in other words, the selection of the candidate was decided Democratically.
IIRC the winner of all the Dem. primary races wasn't decided until the South Carolina democratic primary-- the Dem's S.C. primarily was what finally decided the race (and ultimately got Biden the nomination).
South Carolina is generally a fairly conservative state. And especially most White voters are Conservative and therefore Republicans.
But while they are the minority overall statewide, there are also a pretty large number of African-Americans voters-- almost entirely Democrats.
Which means, among other things, that Democratic primaries in South Carolina are decided by the Black vote.
But why did almost all Black S.C. primary voters . vote for Biden?
(cont'd in next comment).
Well, for starters, Biden is a very experienced politician (who was aware of these facts).
African-American Congressman James Clyburn is highly respected amongst most African-Americans in S. Carolina. And IIRC here's what happened. He had a conversation with Biden before the primary in which he urged Biden to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court if he became President. Biden agreed, and Clyburn then strongly urged his Black consitituents to vote for Biden in the primary-- and it worked. And the S.C. democratic primary put Biden "over the top" as his big win there clinched the nomination (not only did Biden win, but the size of his margin surprised many people as to its large size).
I may have a few details wrong but I'm pretty sure that's the jist of it.
I suddenly though of this quite recently as Biden recently mentioned he will nominate a Black Woman as his next Supreme Court nomination.
eh...I'm not so sure about that. And no I have no proof for my shitty opinion.
yeah, I've not followed the DNC closely so this could be wrong. But I remember during the 2016 elections that they had the superdelegates who could vote as they pleased, did not have to follow any mandates by those who voted in the primary. As I remember, the DNC basically said the convention and nominating process was their private business and they would/could nominate who they wanted to regardless of how the voters sat during the primaries. For the 2020 elections I don't know that they moved away from it's their private club but they did relax the rules on superdelegates.
I thought so, too. Hence my shitty opinion that the DNC is as corrupt as the GOP
Modern political parties suck. Plain and simple, they are self-centered, power-seeking entities that manipulate the electorate at every turn.
Although the R and D parties have very much in common in terms of motivations, dynamics, tactics, etc. I am sorry to say that the R party has distinguished itself with Trump. The GOP has lost its way (and its integrity) by its continued self-destructive support for Trump. Critical in my analysis is the support for Trump after he engaged in his Big Lie con-job. The GOP should have seen that as so over-the-top and so wrong that they set him aside (he was out of office Jan 20, 2021) and moved to a new leader. By continuing to sycophantically support Trump, even after the Big Lie, the GOP has diminished itself and likely will take a few election cycles to recover. The historical stain, however, is permanent.
The GOP will likely make headway in the mid-terms because of natural political dynamics and Biden's less-than-spectacular performance. But it would be yet another mistake for the GOP to think that all is well. Trump remains a parasite that has damaged the GOP and will continue to do so as long as they allow this to continue.
And I don;t understand why they continue to push him out front as the leader of the repub party. He was a democrat for years and years.
Because he is a con man, and that equals politician today
One can only hope...
Lock them up!
Lock them up!!
Lock them up!!!
...What goes around comes around.. (That's a popular phrase used to describe the principles that are expressed in the ancient notion of "The Laws of Karma")
Could and should are two different things.
Trouble is, that will not happen.
And if the TGOP takes control they absolutely will attempt to jail those that spoke truth. It worked for the Nazis---until 1945 anyway.
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