Republicans In At Least Three States Filed Forged Elector Letters.

The House on Wednesday passed a bill to reform the Electoral Count Act, an effort by Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and others to prevent another Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to disrupt the counting of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. The final vote was 229 to 203, with nine Republicans joining Democrats to support the bill.

Those nine Republicans were Cheney and Reps. Tom Rice, Adam Kinzinger, Peter Meijer, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Fred Upton, John Katko, Anthony Gonzales and Chris Jacobs.

The Presidential Election Reform Act, sponsored by Cheney and fellow House Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ensures that Congress receives an electoral certificate from each state that accurately reflects the will of the voters, requires Congress to count electoral votes as the Constitution stipulates, and reaffirms that the vice president's role in approving electoral votes is merely ministerial, after Trump publicly urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to "reject fraudulently chosen electors." Pence refused, saying he had no authority to do so.

The bill also increases the threshold for any objection made in the House or Senate to a state's electoral votes, from one member of each chamber to one-third member of each chamber.

"Let me be clear — this is a kitchen table issue for families, and we must ensure that this anti-democratic plot cannot succeed," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor ahead of the vote. "It's a kitchen table issue because denying the American people their fundamental freedom to choose their own leaders denies them their voice in the policies we pursue and those policies can make an immense difference in their everyday lives."

House GOP leaders encouraged Republican members to vote against the bill. None of the nine Republicans who voted for it will be on the ballot in November, with four having lost primaries to Trump-backed challengers and five opting not to run for relection. Eight of them voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for his actions ahead of the Jan. 6 attack.

The measure will still need to pass the Senate before it can be signed by President Biden.

"What Donald Trump tried to convince the vice president to do was illegal under existing law and we begin by affirming that but we need to then take steps to make sure that another Jan. 6 is something that never happens again," Cheney said on a call Tuesday.

In the Senate, Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin announced Wednesday that a similar bill, the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, now has 10 GOP cosponsors and 10 Democratic cosponsors. The fact that there are 10 Republicans signing on as cosponsors indicates there is enough support to pass the bill in the Senate.

"We are pleased that bipartisan support continues to grow for these sensible and much-needed reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887," Manchin and Collins said in a statement Wednesday. "Our bill is backed by election law experts and organizations across the ideological spectrum. We will keep working to increase bipartisan support for our legislation that would correct the flaws in this archaic and ambiguous law."

The Office of Management and Budget issued a statement of formal support for the Presidential Election Reform Act Wednesday.

"The administration shares the Congress' interest in safeguarding the electoral process to preserve the will of the people, as expressed through democratic procedures established by law," OMB said. "... Americans deserve greater clarity in the process by which their votes will result in the election of a president and vice president."

The fake GOP electors in Georgia that former President Donald Trump recruited as part of his failed attempt to stay in power are starting to point fingers at each other, court documents revealed on Tuesday.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area prosecutor who’s investigating Trump’s effort to upend American democracy there, laid out the details in a legal memo to a state judge—one that hints at criminal indictments to come.

According to the memo, prosecutors in July last year dangled immunity deals for “alternate electors” who were willing to cooperate with the investigation—but their defense lawyer is now accused of never telling them about the potential deal.

Following a special purpose grand jury recommendation in December that the DA seek indictments against some people involved in the fraudulent scheme, investigators have turned up the pressure.

It turns out, these Republican officials and political operatives are now starting to squirm, identifying illegal behavior by their colleagues while trying to save their own skin—a sudden pivot that came when Willis’ investigators met with these fake electors last week.

Wednesday and Friday, “some of the electors stated that another elector… committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts,” Willis explained in her court filing.

That description means that certain Republicans are now identifying crimes committed by a colleague while distancing themselves from that criminal behavior.

But that situation has created what Willis calls “an impracticable and ethical mess,” because 10 of these fake electors are being represented by a single Atlanta defense lawyer—who can’t possibly advocate for clients who are simultaneously ratting each other out. The DA’s office is using those details to make the case that the judge should intervene and disqualify that defense lawyer, Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, citing a conflict of interest.

The DA also accused Debrow of highly unethical behavior, noting how several fake electors interviewed last week revealed that they’d never been told about the potential immunity deals—because Debrow never conveyed the message. The DA said that failure “is in direct conflict” with what Debrow’s fellow defense lawyer, Holly A. Pierson, told the judge in August last year.

Debrow, a former local prosecutor in a neighboring county, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Pierson, a former federal prosecutor in North Carolina.

The DA’s filing on Tuesday is the first indication of who exactly will get hit with criminal charges when Willis seeks an indictment through an Atlanta grand jury—which is expected in the coming weeks.

Debrow represents 10 of the 11 fake electors in question. That list includes Mark Amick, Joseph Brannan, Brad Carver, Vikki Consiglio, John Downey, Carolyn Fish, Kay Godwin, Cathy Latham, Shawn Still and Chandra “C.B.” Yadav.

The list is a “who’s who” of Georgia politics. Amick, Consiglio, and Still have been members of the Georgia Republican Foundation, a fundraising group that attends VIP dinners and touts connections to Trump and his associates. Carver is a lobbyist who serves as the GOP’s chairman in Georgia's 11th congressional district. Brannan is the state’s GOP treasurer. Fisher is the state GOP’s first vice chairwoman. Godwin is an activist who founded Georgia Conservatives in Action. Yadav worked on Kelly Loeffler’s failed Senate bid.

Meanwhile, Latham was previously the top GOP official in a rural Georgia County who coordinated a secret operation to have conspiracy theorists examine local election system computers in early 2021—one that was exposed by The Daily Beast and is now under investigation.

During an hour-long interview last year, she lied repeatedly about her role in putting together the covert mission, which involved having computer forensics experts charter a private plane to the small town and enter a county building to tap into government servers. But text messages and public records revealed she was central to orchestrating the plan.

Now that some of these Republicans seem willing to expose their colleagues’ roles in the fake elector scheme, Debrow’s connections to them “poses a serious risk to the fundamental principle of confidentiality of information,” the DA argued. Willis asked Judge Robert C.I. McBurney to block Debrow “from any further participation” in the case, given that she knows too much already about what others have done.

Willis is leading what is widely considered the most clear-cut criminal investigation of Trump’s Big Lie in 2020, when he used his presidential campaign and lawyers to conduct an all-out assault on the nation’s elections system. Her investigation initially focused on Trump’s menacing Jan. 2, 2021 phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he pressured the elections official to “find 11,780 votes.” That investigation has since expanded to review the actions across the state to undermine the 2020 elections there.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday that she has filed charges against 16 people who signed paperwork falsely claiming that President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election as part of a scheme to overturn the results.

U.S. presidents are technically voted in by slates of electors from each state who cast their votes for the candidate selected by their states’ popular vote. In December 2020, as Trump tried to overturn the results of the election, his allies readied alternative slates of electors in several states.

These appear to be the first charges filed against fake electors.

The announcement came the same day Trump said he has been notified that he is the target of an investigation by a Washington-based grand jury examining the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The 16 people being charged in Michigan allegedly met in the basement of the state's Republican Party headquarters and signed multiple certificates claiming they were “the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America for the state of Michigan,” Nessel said in recorded remarks.

“That was a lie. They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” she continued.

Some of the electors attempted to deliver these false documents to the state Senate, but were turned away, she said; the documents were later sent to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives "with the intent that Vice President Pence would overturn the results of the election, using the false electoral slate," Nessel said.

Nessel said the "false electors" are being charged with eight felony counts each, including forgery.

"The false electors' actions undermine the public's faith in the integrity of our elections and not only violated the spirit of the laws enshrining and defending our democracy, but we believe also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan and peaceably transfer power in America," she said.

The 16 individuals include Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock and state Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden. Michele Lundgren, who was also charged, previously told local television station WDIV that she thought she was signing an attendance sheet for a meeting.

"I didn't even know what an elector was, let alone a fake elector," she told the station.

Nessel had previously referred the case of Michigan’s 16 electors to the Department of Justice, but Bridge Michigan reported earlier this year she was reopening her investigation because federal authorities hadn’t filed charges yet.

Nevada’s attorney general, Democrat Aaron Ford, declined to prosecute the fake electors in that state, while a Georgia prosecutor investigating Trump and his allies has told false electors they could face criminal charges.

An Atlanta-based grand jury on Monday indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants on state charges stemming from their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 electoral defeat in the Peach State.


Here are the 19 people charged in the Georgia case, according to the indictment.


Donald Trump, former US president

Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff

John Eastman, Trump lawyer

Kenneth Chesebro, pro-Trump lawyer

Jeffrey Clark, top Justice Department official

Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign lawyer

Robert Cheeley, lawyer who promoted fraud claims

Mike Roman, Trump campaign official

David Shafer, Georgia GOP chair and fake elector

Shawn Still, fake GOP elector

Stephen Lee, pastor tied to intimidation of election workers

Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump

Trevian Kutti, publicist tied to intimidation of election workers

Sidney Powell, Trump campaign lawyer

Cathy Latham, fake GOP elector tied to Coffee County breach

Scott Hall, tied to Coffee County election system breach

Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor

Ray Smith, Trump campaign attorney