As the nation watches, three alleged planners of Wisconsin’s fake elector scheme are set to be arraigned this week in Dane County court. The criminal charges against them are moving forward in a dramatically different national legal and political landscape than when they were filed in June 2024.
Background
The scheme arose in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when allies of then-President Donald Trump tried to keep him in power despite his loss. Those allies, who became known as fake or false electors, attempted to cast electoral votes for Trump in multiple states he lost and submit those certificates to Congress.
Now, as the three defendants in the Wisconsin case await arraignment on 11 felony forgery charges, Trump has regained the presidency, and he and his allies are undertaking extensive efforts to rewrite what happened in the 2020 election. Since returning to office, Trump has issued a federal pardon to those involved in the 2020 scheme, and his administration has sent the FBI to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
Case Details
The defendants — former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s Wisconsin campaign attorney in 2020; attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who advised Trump on legal matters; and former Trump aide Mike Roman — are scheduled to be arraigned on June 16. Each faces 11 felony charges for his part in allegedly guiding Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors to send documents to the U.S. Capitol falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin in the 2020 election.
Troupis has since asked the federal government to reimburse him $3.2 million from the proposed $1.8 billion fund, saying his life has been a “nightmare” since he stepped up to represent Trump. Attorneys for Chesebro and Roman didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Troupis’ attorney declined to comment.
Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor, said it is striking that the case is still ongoing nearly six years after the election, but he said the conduct at issue remains extraordinary. “These were among the most serious challenges to elections we’ve seen in modern times,” Burden said. “To think that there might be no ramifications of that really would be shocking, and, I think, at odds with how the American criminal justice system has typically operated.”
Original reporting: Wisconsin Watch — read the source article.
