Here’s the Proof That Team Trump Directly Helped Michigan’s Fake Electors

Donald Trump’s campaign team actively helped organize the scheme to use fake electors to falsely claim he won Michigan during the 2020 election.

Internal campaign emails obtained by The Detroit News reveal just how extensive Trump’s involvement was in the plot. The messages show Trump’s campaign staff helped organize the state Republican Party meeting that resulted in the fake electors. Trump’s team also tried to mail the document falsely certifying he had won Michigan to then–Vice President Mike Pence and the National Archives.

Joe Biden won Michigan in 2020 with 50.6 percent of the vote. When it became clear he would lose, a Trump campaign employee allegedly tried to start a riot at the TCF Center in Detroit, where ballots were being counted, to stop the vote count.

After Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Republicans in Michigan and six other highly contested states launched attempts to overturn the results. GOP operatives signed certificates falsely stating they were the state’s Electoral College representatives and tried to claim that Trump had won their state.

Michigan Republican leaders publicly insisted the fake electors were just there to ensure that Trump could be certified as president in a timely manner should the courts overturn the 2020 election. Every single one of Trump’s legal challenges to the election were thrown out.

But the recently revealed campaign emails show that Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who came up with the fake elector plan, told Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn that the actual goal was to boost the conspiracy the election had been rigged. Doing so could eventually “void the results” showing Biden had won.

Trump lawyer John Eastman, who took over the plan from Chesebro, explained separately that “if Biden is simply held to under 270 by virtue of electoral votes not being counted (even though ‘appointed’), or by virtue of a switch to legislature-certified electors, then the election gets thrown to the House.”

“If the Republicans there hold true and vote with their state delegations, Trump should win a bare majority of the states.”

In addition to helping organize the fake elector scheme, Trump’s campaign staff also took it upon themselves to get the fake certificate to Washington. Emails show that campaign staffer Shawn Flynn led the meeting on December 14, 2020, during which the fake electors signed a certificate. Flynn was also in charge of mailing the certificate to Pence, who oversaw the electoral vote count.

When Flynn asked if he should pick a certain mailing class, Trump’s director of Election Day operations, Mike Roman, replied, “Choose the fastest.”

But it soon became unclear whether the certificate would make it. The fake documents from Michigan and Wisconsin got stuck in the mail, and Trump campaign staffers rushed to fly the certificates to Washington themselves. They even considered chartering a private jet to make it in time to block the legitimate certification.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 people in July with felonies for pretending to be 2020 electors. The accused include state Republican Party Co-chair Meshawn Maddock and state Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden.

Three states have issued charges for fake elector schemes. Nevada charged six Republicans, including the state GOP chair, in early December. In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney has charged some fake electors as part of her larger indictment against Trump. The former president and his allies have been indicted in the Peach State for trying to overturn the 2020 election results.

There is also an investigation into the fake elector scheme in Arizona. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, 10 Republicans who posed as fake electors settled a lawsuit over their actions in December. Under the agreement, the Republicans acknowledged that Biden had won the state and promised not to serve as electors in 2024 or any other election where Trump is on the ballot.

The other states where Republicans tried to overthrow the results—New York and Pennsylvania—have yet to publicly announce whether they will probe the fake elector plot.