Two lawyers for the then president

Donald

Trump orchestrated a scheme for fake voters to submit paperwork falsely saying Republicans had won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit reached Monday who makes months of text messages and emails public.

Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, detailing the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, they adopted the strategy in six other states, including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

The agreements settle a civil lawsuit Democrats filed in 2022 against the two lawyers and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake voters. The Republicans settled 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 sought transparency, accountability, and deterrence. We can’t let this happen again.

There is no admission of wrongdoing or liability in the agreements in which Chesebro and Troupis promise never to participate in similar efforts related to future presidential campaigns. Troupis must also pay an undisclosed amount to the plaintiffs.

Trump’s 2020 Wisconsin team knew he lost, but started promoting election lies and taping shows

Phone and text messages sent to Troupis and Chesebro on Monday were not immediately returned.

Electors are people 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 determine the outcome.

The documents show how Chesebro and Troupis, Trump’s lawyer in Wisconsin, used arcane laws to rationalize and prepare the fake certificates for the fake voters. They also reveal how the two strategically delay deadlines for certifying electoral votes and influence public opinion, including floating ideas on conservative talk radio.

In November 2020, while awaiting a decision from the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court on Trump’s attempt to invalidate thousands of votes in the state, Chesebro suggested Troupis contact conservative radio hosts in Milwaukee and Madison: especially to maximize results. the probability that SCOW [Supreme Court of Wisconsin] judges hear this quickly and anticipate the case?

He ended with a winking emoji.

The January 6 commission subpoenas fake Trump electors in seven states

The voter fraud efforts are at the center of a federal indictment filed against Trump in August, alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors, who are investigating his conduct in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, have also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump also faces charges in Georgia and has denied wrongdoing.

Michigan and Nevada have filed criminal charges against fake voters, but there is no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin

Atty. General Attorney General

Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has suggested he is relying on federal investigators but has also not ruled out a state investigation. Lawyers who negotiated the settlement said the information in the documents has already been provided to Kaul’s office.

Monday’s agreements were announced by the Georgetown University Law Centers Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Law Forward and the Madison-based law firm Stafford Rosenbaum.

Prosecutors say the documents show how Troupis, an attorney who has represented the Republican Party of Wisconsin and is a former judge, was intimately involved in the origins of the effort.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court dismisses Trump’s election lawsuit

Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden, a Democrat, by fewer than 21,000 votes.

At Troupis’s urging, Chesebro drafted memos in the final months of 2020 detailing how to prepare and sign the fake voter certificates. The documents include a 10-minute video of the fake voters cheering and taking photos as they cast and signed their ballots for Trump in the state of Wisconsin.

Stands

Capitol.

There is no direct communication with Trump in the documents, but there are exchanges with top campaign aides and Trump’s lawyer

Rudy Rudolf W.

Giuliani.

A day after Chesebro shares a post from December. 6 memo on strategies, Troupis follows up via text: I sent it to the White House this afternoon. The real decision makers.

There is a brief mention of a December. 16 afternoon meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, where both men attended along with others. Three days later, Chesebro references Trump’s social media post calling followers to Washington on January 6, saying: Be there, it’ll be wild!

Wow. Based on three days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this, Chesebro writes to Troupis.

Trump campaign officials gave their assessment of each state’s progress on the bogus election plan.

Michigan’s attorney general asks FBI to investigate fake GOP voters

Wisconsin appears to be the most organized state so far, a December 2011 study concludes. August 11, 2020, email from Trump campaign staffer Joshua Findlay to Chesebro.

“This all came from Wisconsin and spread to other states,” said attorney Mary McCord of the Georgetown Institute, who helped negotiate the settlement. That was an important part of the story that led to the violence on January 6.

After the deadly attack on the Capitol, the lawyers discussed falsely shifting blame from Trump supporters to members of the anti-fascist movement, among others.

It would be nice if Trump surrogates could make it clear that without antifas’ role in the actual breach of the Capitol would have been completely peaceful. And that Trump couldn’t do that [have] Reasonably anticipated, Chesebro wrote in a text message to Troupis.

He added: The president can put this behind him if he invites Biden [Vice President Kamala] Harris comes for coffee on inauguration morning and attends the meeting [virtual] inauguration.

Government and outside investigations have conclusively found that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have affected the 2020 election. But Trump has continued to spread falsehoods about the election.

Sophia Tareen writes for the Associated Press.