Three associates of former President Donald Trump have received felony forgery charges by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.
Attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, along with former Trump aide Mike Roman, are being accused of submitting false election paperwork to the staffer of a Pennsylvania lawmaker in an alleged attempt to get the documents to former Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.
Though Kaul, a Democrat, has not made an official announcement about the charges as of early Tuesday afternoon, the court docket for Dane County shows publicly available charging papers for Chesebro, Troupis and Roman.
Forgery is classified as a Felony H, the next to least severe form of felony, in Wisconsin. This level of crime could result in a maximum of six years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.
All three Trump associates are scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Sept. 19, according to court documents.
Chesebro and Roman have been previously named as alleged co-conspirators alongside Trump in Georgia and, more recently, Arizona, POLITICO reports. However, these are the first criminal charges Troupis has faced.
“Wisconsin is the fifth state to level charges against participants in the elector scheme, but it has special significance because the scheme was largely hatched there,” per the outlet. “Chesebro was deputized by Troupis to craft an elector strategy in November 2020 focused primarily on Wisconsin. But as Trump grew increasingly desperate to stave off his defeat in the 2020 election, Troupis promoted Chesebro’s efforts to the national campaign, which quickly opted to export it to other states as part of a national strategy.”
In response to reports of the charges, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers released a statement on X that said, simply, “Good.” Here’s my full statement regarding media reports today indicating charges are being filed against individuals involved in Wisconsin’s 2020 fake elector scheme. pic.twitter.com/TUSRS42KEV
— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) June 4, 2024
Though the alleged effort is often referred to as a “fake elector scheme,” an April article in The Epoch Times notes that electors who sought to cast ballots for Trump in late 2020 “viewed themselves as contingent electors.”
“They believed they were putting in a procedural vote for President Trump to reserve the right of such a vote in the case of President Trump succeeding in legal challenges reviewing the integrity of the state’s election outcome, adding that it was important to recognize that, ‘Constitution takes precedent over statute,’” the outlet reported at the time.
In a complaint cited by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kaul charges Chesebro, Troupis and Roman with intent to forge a “'Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Wisconsin,' knowing it to have been thus falsely made or altered, with one or more of the parties to the conspiracy doing an act to effect the objective of the conspiracy.”
“Between at least as early as on or about November 17, 2020, and continuing through on or about January 6, 2021, in Dane County, State of Wisconsin, and elsewhere, the above-named defendants, together with other individuals not charged in this complaint, agreed or combined with another with the intent to commit and for the purpose of committing the crime of uttering as genuine a forged writing or object," Kaul wrote.
Early Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called the charges “outrageous.”
“Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin’s judiciary,” he wrote in an X post. “Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny.”
Johnson Added: “Democrats are turning America into a banana republic.” This is outrageous.
Now Democrats are weaponizing Wisconsin’s judiciary.
Apparently conservative lawyers advising clients is illegal under Democrat tyranny.
Democrats are turning America into a banana republic. https://t.co/2fdTsvAXZ7
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) June 4, 2024
