Michigan 2020 vote machine tampering trial delayed — until after 2024 election

• Attorney Stefanie Lambert appeared in court over allegations she unlawfully tampered with voting machines following the 2020 election
• Prior to jury selection, Lambert’s attorney argued prosecutors withheld evidence, pushing for a motion to quash or dismiss the case
• An Oakland County judge denied those motions but adjourned the case until Dec. 2, citing cross-examination concerns

PONTIAC — What would have been Michigan's first criminal trial stemming from attempts to discredit the 2020 election has been delayed until after this year's presidential contest. 

A new court date has been set for Dec. 2 for Stefanie Lambert, a Michigan attorney accused of tampering with voting machines in a failed attempt to prove they were rigged against Donald Trump. 

A judge on Monday morning agreed to reschedule the trial but rejected a motion to dismiss by Lambert’s attorney, Daniel Hartman, who alleged a Brady violation, or failure to turn over evidence, by the prosecution.

Hartman said he first became aware of the letter late Sunday after being emailed about its existence by attorney Matt DePerno, who was charged alongside Lambert but has yet to stand trial. 

The document “directly refutes the testimony” of Elections Director Jonathan Brater given before a grand jury, Hartman claimed. 

Lambert, who has been involved in 2020 litigation across the country, faces four felony charges over her alleged role in a plan to unlawfully access Michigan voting machines. Since charges were filed in 2023, Lambert has maintained she’s done “absolutely nothing illegal.” 

She told reporters as much outside Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Matis’ courtroom following the adjournment.

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“As I’ve maintained from the beginning, I’ve never done anything illegal, and eventually we’ll have a final ruling reflecting that,” Lambert said. “That’s all I’m going to say at this point.”

Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson, named special prosecutor to the case after Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recused herself from the matter, called Matis’ decision to delay the case a “big disappointment.” 

He and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat have been prepared to “try this case back in April,” Hilson said, telling reporters he is considering adding the letter into evidence, as “it shows what our theory of the case is.” 

“A private citizen does not have the right to walk into a clerk’s office anywhere in the state of Michigan and ask for a voting tabulator,” Hilson said. 

‘Entrusted’ equipment

Monday’s adjournment was the latest in a series of delays for litigation stemming from the 2020 election. In Ingham County, a judge has not yet decided whether Republican elector nominees will stand trial for allegedly signing a false document indicating that Trump won the state.

Professional sanctions hearings for DePerno and other attorneys involved in 2020 lawsuits have been delayed as well. 

At issue in Oakland County on Monday was a May 2021 letter from Brater, the state’s elections director, that was addressed to Cheboygan County Clerk Karen Brewster. It detailed who has the authority to grant third parties access to Michigan voting machines.

It additionally indicated Michigan election law “entrusts clerks with choosing and maintaining their voting systems” but does “not provide any authority for county commissions to take control of this equipment.”

Custody, programming, testing and review of election equipment is only “entrusted to qualified election officials,” Brater wrote, adding that “only election officials, licensed vendors or accredited voting system test laboratories would be granted access to voting equipment.”

Who can access voting machines is a key part of the case. 

Prosecutors say a private investigator who was working for Lambert collected voting equipment from local election clerks in Lake Township (Missaukee County), Roscommon County, Richfield Township (in Roscommon) and Irving Township (Barry County) beginning in March of 2021.

Michigan law only allows access to voting machines with permission of the Secretary of State or through a court order, such as a search warrant, Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Phyllis McMillen ruled last year. 

But Hartman claimed that Brater’s 2021 letter “was contrary to what he told the grand jury” that decided to authorize charges against Lambert in 2023. 

“The government concealed this” letter from not just Lambert’s team, but Hilson and Maat as well, Hartman argued, “and put one face on to prosecute, but withheld facts that are material and relevant.” 

“Are you saying that you believe, on the basis of this letter, local clerks had authority to give physical possession of the voting machines to a private individual?” Matis, the judge, asked.

Partially, said Hartman, who added that he felt the letter was a way for the Secretary of State’s Office to establish who had permission to possess voting machines “without a law, without a published rule … based upon their instructions to the clerks.”

With the adjournment until December, Hartman said he would use the extra time to discover if any other memos exist that are “inconsistent with this testimony” before potentially refiling a motion to dismiss the case. 

But Maat, the assistant chief prosecutor, argued that not only were they also not aware of Brater’s letter until Hartman brought it up, “everything that has happened here has been completely independent” of both the Secretary of State and Department of Attorney General.

He also accused Hartman of wasting the court’s time with the last-minute filing, noting it was “fundamentally unfair for us to be litigating these cases” as potential jury members waited for consideration. 

Just before noon, Matis said he didn’t “believe it is appropriate to dismiss” the case on grounds of a Brady violation, but did say he would grant the motion to adjourn the trial to a later date. 

“It was my intention, every intention, of starting this trial today,” Matis said. But given the letter, and the issues it raised, he added it only made sense to push the case back to December. 

With Brater potentially being the first witness in the case, Matis said the extension would also give both sides time “to be prepared for proper cross-examination of that witness — who, again, potentially, could be a key witness.”

Who is Stefanie Lambert?

Lambert is a metro Detroit attorney entangled in a number of cases stemming from the 2020 presidential election, all of them seeking to challenge whether widespread fraud occurred in the contest.

Numerous audits and investigations have found no such fraud.

Among her Michigan cases, Lambert represented Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf in a failed lawsuit that alleged “massive” fraud in the 2020 election and worked on attorney Sidney Powell’s so-called Kraken case, which sought to block certification of Michigan’s 2020 presidential election. 

She additionally represented former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, a 2020 election denier who refused to perform routine maintenance on her voting equipment ahead of the 2022 election. 

Scott was recalled from her position in 2023 and now faces multiple felony counts — alongside Lambert — for allegedly allowing an unauthorized person access to voter data, the Department of Attorney General announced in May.

A federal judge in 2021 sanctioned Lambert for the Kraken suit, but an appeals court panel reversed the penalties, ruling she had done only “minimal” work on the case. The Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission subsequently withdrew a professional misconduct claim against her. 

Lambert has also since been removed from a separate 2020 election lawsuit after sharing confidential court documents with a local sheriff.

The case so far

Ex-state Rep. Daire Rendon and DePerno, the Republican Party’s 2022 nominee for attorney general, have also been charged for their role in the plan. Unlike Lambert, however, their cases were remanded to District Court for preliminary examinations to determine if a trial is warranted. 

Both DePerno and Rendon face multiple felony charges based on allegations from the attorney general’s office that they "orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access” to voting machines in multiple jurisdictions.

In a failed attempt to prove the machines were rigged against Trump, the group allegedly took five ballot tabulators from Barry, Roscommon and Missaukee counties to hotels or rented Airbnb properties in Oakland County. 

There, police contend the machines were "broken into" for "tests," according to court filings. 

Hilson, the Muskegon County prosecutor, was assigned the case in September 2022. Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel requested a special prosecutor take over the probe because one of the suspects, DePerno, was running against her at the time, which created a conflict of interest.