- President Donald Trump pardons 16 Michigan Republicans who acted as false electors after 2020 election
- The group recently faced state charges but the case was thrown out for insufficient evidence of intent
- They sought to replace electors for Joe Biden’s win in Michigan in 2020 with a pro-Trump slate
President Donald Trump has pardoned 16 Michigan Republicans who, in the wake of the 2020 election, were part of a plan to offer an “alternate” slate of electors to Trump despite then-candidate Joe Biden’s victory.
The pardons appear to be a largely symbolic gesture, given Michigan’s so-called false electors have not been charged at the federal level and are not the subject of any current federal investigations.
The pardon “ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people,” according to the document Trump signed, as those involved in the false electors plot faced a smattering of charges across multiple states.
Fifteen of Michigan’s would-be Trump electors had until recently faced eight felony counts at the state-level for signing a document falsely claiming Trump won the state in 2020, including forgery and uttering and publishing false documents, which a federal pardon from Trump could not have blocked.
But Lansing District Judge Kirsten Simmons ruled in September that prosecutors under Attorney General Dana Nessel didn’t bring sufficient evidence. She dismissed all charges before the case went to trial.
“This is a fraud case, and (you) have to prove intent,” Simmons said in her ruling from the bench, “and I don’t believe that there’s evidence sufficient to prove intent.”
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Nessel’s office is still considering an appeal of that ruling, she confirmed Monday, noting “federal pardons do not apply to state charges alleging violations of state law.”
In a statement to Bridge Michigan, Nessel called the false electors plan “an all-out assault against American democracy in (Trump’s) efforts to overturn the presidential election results and preserve his hold on power.”
While her office weighs an appeal, Nessel said the Lansing 54-A District Court has failed to provide her team with a transcript of Simmons’ ruling, despite repeated requests, which they need to make a decision.
“We have received no contact from the court nor even acknowledgement of our requests,” Nessel said in the statement.
Monday’s announcement by the Trump administration included a pardon for James Renner, a 2020 Republican elector nominee, against whom state-level charges were dropped in exchange for cooperative testimony in the case.
Trump’s U.S. pardon attorney, Ed Martin, celebrated the presidential pardons, writing in a post on X, “Let their healing begin.”
Martin was also an organizer of “stop the steal” rallies in the wake of the 2020 election and has worked to prosecute some of Trump’s political opponents, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, a Michigan State University professor.
The would-be electors had signed the documents in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party’s headquarters, then attempted to deliver them to the state Capitol during the appointment of the real electors, only to be turned away at the entrance by state troopers.
Ken Thompson, one of the Trump electors and an Ionia County Republican precinct delegate, said he wasn’t aware of the pardon before Trump issued it, but was “very pleased to be recognized and listed.”
“We’d be in jail right now” if then-Vice President Kamala Harris had been elected in 2024, Thompson said.
If Nessel decides to appeal the ruling, however, Thompson believes it’ll be dismissed outright.
Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 154,188 votes, about a 2.8 percentage-point margin, according to the state’s certified election results.
The four-member Board of State Canvassers certified the election result, with one Republican abstaining, amid intense pressure from GOP activists to subvert the election results.
The pardons also included a number of attorneys and lawyers who helped guide the false elector strategy, including Mike Roman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.
Powell, who was sanctioned over a lawsuit that sought to overturn Michigan results, continues to face attorney discipline proceedings in the state.
Meshawn Maddock, one of the pardoned electors and a former vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party, alleged Nessel “broke the law to hysterically target senior citizens she despised,” a reference to colleagues like Trump elector John Haggard, who died shortly after learning the charges against him had been dismissed.
“I hope Trump shows as much mercy to her as she showed to 80-somethings living paycheck-to-paycheck,” she added.
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