Two lawyers for then-President Donald Trump came up with a plan fake voters According to a court settlement reached Monday, the Republican spent months publicly falsified paperwork, texts and emails claiming he had won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states.
Under their plea agreement, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis released more than 1,400 pages of documents, e-mails and text messages, photos and videos detailing the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show that they were coordinated by Trump campaign officials replicated the strategy in six other states Including Georgia, where Chesebro is already admitted his guilt to the charges arising from the 2020 elections.
Agreements are settled civil suit Two Wisconsin attorneys and 10 Republicans have been nominated by Democrats in 2022 against self-imposed voter fraud. The Republicans were determined in December.
“Our democracy demands better than this,” said Scott Thompson, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who helped negotiate the agreements. “Therefore, this lawsuit … consistently called for transparency, accountability and deterrence. We cannot allow this to happen again.”
Chesebro and Troupis plead no wrongdoing or liability in their agreements to never engage in similar efforts involving future presidential campaigns. Troupis must also pay an undisclosed amount to the plaintiffs.
Troupis said in an emailed statement Monday that “alternative voter ballots” are a “reasonable course of action” given the 2020 results. can be applied for to the US Supreme Court.
“The arrangement was made to avoid endless litigation, and nothing in today’s settlement admits guilt and should not,” he added.
Phone and text messages left for Chesebro on Monday were not immediately returned.
Electors are persons appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors will be sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to confirm the results.
The documents show how Chesebro and Troupis, Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, used secret laws to rationalize and create fake certificates for fraudulent voters. They also show two strategic ways to delay the deadlines for the certification of electoral votes and how to change public opinion, including the ideas floating around on conservative talk radio.
As of November 2020 decision is pending of the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court, about Trump’s effort to invalidate thousands of votes in the state, Chesebro suggested Troupis contact conservative radio hosts in Milwaukee and Madison: “Basically to increase the chances of SCOW (the Supreme Court of Wisconsin) the Justices hear it quickly and prejudge the case ?”
He ended with a winking emoji.
Fake voter efforts are a staple of August federal indictment He filed a lawsuit against Trump, alleging that he tried to cancel the results of the 2020 elections. Federal prosecutors are investigating his conduct January 6, 2021, US Capitol riots, also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump has also faced accusations Georgia and denied oppression.
Michigan and Nevada have filed criminal charges against voter fraud, but there are no known criminal investigations in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said he has confidence in federal investigators but has not ruled out a state probe. Lawyers who negotiated the settlement said the information in the documents had already been submitted to Kaul’s office.
Monday’s settlements were announced by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Organizing and Defense, Law Forward and Madison-based law firm Stafford Rosenbaum.
The documents show how deeply involved Troupis, an attorney representing the Republican Party of Wisconsin and a former judge, was behind the effort’s origins, attorneys for the plaintiffs said.
Trump lost Wisconsin to Democrat Biden Less than 21,000 voices.
At Troupis’ urging, Chesebrough produced memos in the final months of 2020 detailing how to prepare and sign fake voter IDs. The documents include a 10-minute video of fake voters cheering and taking photos as they cast ballots for Trump at the Wisconsin State Capitol.
The documents contain no direct links to Trump, but do include exchanges with senior campaign aides and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
A day after Chesebro shared the strategy memo on Dec. 6, Troupis followed up via text: “I sent it to the White House this afternoon. The real decision makers.”
There is a brief note from a meeting with Trump on the afternoon of December 15 in the Oval Office, in which both men attended, along with others. A few days later, Chesebro referred to Trump’s Jan. 6 social media post urging his followers to Washington, D.C. “Be there, it’s going to be wild!”
“Amazing! Wow. Based on three days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this,” Chesebro texts Troupis.
Trump campaign officials offered their assessment of each state’s progress on the fraudulent voter plan.
“Wisconsin appears to be the most organized state ever,” concluded a Dec. 11, 2020, email from Trump campaign aide Joshua Findlay to Chesebro.
“This all came out of Wisconsin and spread to other states,” said attorney Mary McCord of the Georgetown Institute, which helped negotiate the settlement. “It was a significant part of the story that led to the January 6 violence.”
After the deadly attack on the Capitol, advocates debated false deviation Blame it on everyone from Trump supporters to members of the anti-fascist movement, among others.
“Trump’s surrogates would do well to figure this out without antifa having a role in the actual intervention… The scene at the Capitol would be completely peaceful. And Trump could not have reasonably foreseen that,” Chesebro wrote in a text to Troupis.
He added: “If the President invites Biden and (Vice President Kamala) Harris to coffee on the morning of the inauguration and attends the (virtual) inauguration, he can put this behind him.”
Government and external investigationsuniformly found There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have undermined the 2020 elections. But there is Trump continued to spread lies about the election.