They did not hesitate to lie to the US Senate to try to re-elect Donald Trump at all costs, and face up to fourteen years in prison for this. Sixteen supporters of the former Republican president have been charged in Michigan in connection with the “false voters” case, seeking to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The charges announced in this state in the northern United States are the first to target participants in the project which attempted – illegitimately – to have Donald Trump proclaimed the winner in seven American states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New -Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).
If this project had succeeded, the Republican would have kept the White House at the expense of Joe Biden. The failure of the scheme is considered one of the triggering events for the assault on the Capitol in Washington, on January 6, 2021, the day of the certification of the victory of the Democratic candidate.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel explained that about three weeks before January 6, 2021, the sixteen defendants met “secretly” in the basement of Michigan’s Republican Party headquarters. They had then signed documents in which they certified to be electors of Michigan, she said. These fake certificates were then sent to the US Senate with the aim of having their votes counted instead of those of the real voters of Michigan, and thus proclaiming Donald Trump the winner in this state.
Conspiracy
In the United States, the president is chosen by indirect universal suffrage, each state assigning its electors, whose number depends essentially on its population, to the candidate who comes first locally.
The forged certificates were eventually ignored, but the attempt was investigated, particularly by the House of Representatives Committee on the January 6 Uprising.
“This scheme – to overthrow the will of the voters and undermine democracy – was fraudulent and without legal basis,” the Michigan attorney general said. The sixteen defendants face several counts, including criminal association and forgery and use of forgery.
Among the defendants are Michigan Republican National Committee chapter leader Kathy Berden, as well as former Michigan Republican Party co-chairman Meshawn Maddock.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced at the same time that he had received a letter from prosecutors informing him that he is personally targeted by the federal investigation into the assault on the Capitol. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is investigating the Fake Voters Project as part of his broader investigation into Donald Trump and his role around the events of January 6, 2021. Two lawyers close to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, are accused of having piloted the false voters project, and are supposedly targeted by the investigation of the prosecutor Smith.