- Trump-backing electors from the 2020 election announced they intend to sue Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
- Charges were dismissed in September 2025 due to insufficient evidence
- Nessel has declined to appeal the dismissal
A group of so-called “false electors” from Michigan’s 2020 election announced Thursday they will sue Attorney General Dana Nessel, alleging her effort to prosecute them was malicious.
A notice of intent to sue filed in the Michigan Court of Claims on behalf of Meshawn Maddock alleges that the felony complaint Nessel had filed against her was “malicious” and “filed with malicious intent.”
The Michigan Conservative Coalition, which was co-founded by Maddock, announced the planned court action in a press release and argued that Nessel had “wasted taxpayer dollars” on the prosecution.
The announcement came three days after Nessel confirmed her office would not appeal a judge’s September decision to dismiss forgery and other charges against the defendants. Maddock’s notice of intent to sue, however, was signed three days before Nessel made her decision public.
Kim Bush, a spokesperson for Nessel, told Bridge Michigan in a statement that the lawsuits against the attorney general “will not be successful.” But, she suggested, “it’s possible the proceedings will shed further light on the criminal conduct of the plaintiffs.”
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Maddock, one of the would-be electors who later became co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said in a statement that “Dana and her far left persecutors need to learn, perhaps the hard way, that her out of control legal behavior is unacceptable.”
Maddock, whose husband is a state lawmaker, said Nessel should personally have to pay “millions of dollars in damages that her horrible and malicious actions caused.”
After Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan in 2020, Maddock and other would-be GOP electors signed documents in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party’s headquarters falsely claiming President Donald Trump had won the state.
They attempted to deliver those documents to the state Capitol during the appointment of the real electors in the Legislature, only to be turned away at the entrance by state troopers.
Nessel initially charged 16 Republicans in July 2023, including Maddock, Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot and former Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden. They each faced eight felony charges, including forgery and uttering and publishing false documents.
Charges were dropped against one individual who agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but more than two years passed before Lansing District Court Judge Kirsten Simmons dismissed the charges, ruling Nessel didn’t have sufficient evidence to take the charges to trial.
Erick Kaardal, a Minnesota lawyer who has worked with multiple Michigan groups that falsely claimed Trump won the state’s 2020 election, is representing electors in the litigation against Nessel. In a statement he said the suit would be “vigorously pursued.”
“Government officials who weaponize their offices against citizens for political purposes must be held accountable under the law,” he added.
President Donald Trump issued a federal pardon for the group last year, though his action has no bearing on state-level prosecution.
In her decision not to appeal dismissal of the state charges, Nessel said that she still believes false electors committed crimes, but concluded that the resource-intensive case would be unlikely to ultimately succeed.
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