Further charges against Trump lawyers and aide over 2020 fake electors

Prosecutors in the US state of Wisconsin have filed 10 additional felony charges against two lawyers and an aide to President-elect Donald Trump who advised Mr Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.

Jim Troupis, who was Mr Trump’s lawyer in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Mr Trump’s director of election day operations in 2020, all initially faced a single felony forgery charge in Wisconsin. Those charges were filed in June.

But on Tuesday, two days before the three are scheduled for their initial court appearances, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed 10 additional felony charges against each of them.

The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Mr Trump that year.

Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a 10,000-dollar (£7,839) fine.

Lawyers for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.

The state charges against the Trump lawyers and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors has been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Mr Chesebro and Mr Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.

There are pending charges related to the fake electors scheme in state and federal courts in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia. Federal prosecutors, investigating Mr Trump’s conduct related to the January 6 2021 US Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.

Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates.

The Wisconsin complaint details how Mr Troupis, Mr Chesebro and Mr Roman created a document that falsely said Mr Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver to then-vice president Mike Pence.

In the amended complaint filed on Tuesday, prosecutors said the majority of the 10 electors told investigators that they were needed to sign the elector certificate indicating that Mr Trump had won only to preserve his legal options if a court changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.

A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said.

Additionally, a majority of the electors said that they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.

Mr Troupis filed four motions to dismiss the charge against him ahead of Thursday’s hearing and before the amended complaint was filed.

He argues that having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot was done to preserve their legal options in case the US Supreme Court ruled in Mr Trump’s favour in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote.

No crime was committed by that action, therefore the complaint must be dismissed, Mr Troupis contends.

In another motion to dismiss, he argues that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges therefore cannot legally be brought in state court.

In a third motion, Mr Troupis argues that the case should be dismissed because facts that showed no crime was committed were left out of the complaint. In a fourth motion, Mr Troupis argues that it should be dismissed because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the state’s attorney general.

The Wisconsin charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. They were filed in June, five months before Mr Trump carried Wisconsin in November. He also won the state in 2016, but lost it in 2020.

The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Mr Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon that case last month, acknowledging that Mr Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him.

Mr Trump was also indicted in Georgia along with 18 others accused of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election there. Mr Trump is trying to get that case dismissed, arguing that state courts will not have jurisdiction over him when he returns to the White House in January.

Mr Chesebro and Mr Roman were among those indicted along with Mr Trump in Georgia.

Mr Roman has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges there. He has also pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges in Arizona related to the fake electors scheme in that state, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery.

Last year, Mr Chesebro pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents after reaching a deal with Georgia prosecutors. He is now trying to invalidate the plea after the judge in September tossed out the charge to which he had pleaded guilty.

Mr Chesebro was one of four people to plead guilty in the Georgia case in the months following the indictment.