Now, as Election Day 2024 approaches, some observers worry the cases will not be concluded before the Nov. 5 race that will once again pit Democratic President Joe Biden against Trump in a rematch they fear could inspire new attempts to undermine the democratic process.
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Others express frustration with a long and tortuous judicial process that may ultimately never make it beyond the preliminary examination phase.
This became evident this week in Lansing when 54-A District Court Judge Kristin Simmons, presiding over a preliminary hearing for the accused false electors, appeared to chide lead state investigator Howard Shock for having difficulty remembering certain items. of years of research.
Simmons, nominated to the bench in 2019 by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is doing little to speed up the case.
After dividing the defendants into separate groups for preliminary examinations, including two hearings that have stretched out for weeks and a third that has not yet been scheduled, the judge signaled Wednesday that she will not decide whether to bind the suspects for trial. until each exam is completed.
While delays can be frustrating for both plaintiffs and defendants, long wait times are more a feature of the legal system than a bug, said Steven Liedel, a Michigan attorney specializing in election and campaign finance law who He previously served as legal advisor to then-Gov. . Jennifer Granholm.
The factors contributing to the delays can be far-reaching, Liedel said, including the potential for overlapping state and federal cases such as the bogus electors case, which was investigated by special prosecutor Jack Smith until Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel reopened her investigation early last year.
There was also the COVID-19 pandemic, which Liedel said “greatly affected the operations of the courts.”
“The judiciary is an independent branch of government,” he told Bridge Michigan on Wednesday, adding that courts “aren’t concerned with deadlines related to elections and that kind of thing.”
Republican alternate electors in Lansing
The largest of the 2020 election-related cases in Michigan, in terms of scope and scale, is that of 15 Republicans accused of participating in the so-called fake elector scheme.
A first group of defendants, including former Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock and Kathy Berden, a former member of the Republican National Committee, concluded preliminary examinations in April.
A second set concluded preliminary examinations on Wednesday, but a third round is expected because three other defendants were unable to make earlier court dates, either due to health or scheduling issues.
State investigators allege that the defendants signed a document in the wake of Michigan’s 2020 presidential election claiming that the state’s Electoral College votes went to Trump even though Biden won by 154,188 votes.
Voter defense attorneys say many of them didn’t know what a Trump campaign lawyer had asked them to sign, or that they only signed the document as a backup in case the election was ultimately overturned.
Wednesday’s testimony from former Michigan Republican Party Communications Director Tony Zammit seemed to underscore that point.
Zammit recalled seeing the defendants line up to sign a sheet in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters in late 2020. But, he said, there was only one sheet of signatures, not the first page of the document that was later would be sent to the National Congress. Files claiming Trump won the state.
That could be a key distinction, because prosecutors must prove that the defendants knowingly committed forgery by submitting a list of false voters.
Asked when he will decide whether to take the case to trial, Simmons said Wednesday that he plans to issue a blanket decision for all defendants once the remaining preliminary examinations are completed. “But I don’t know yet,” he said.
The 15 defendants were charged in July 2023 with eight felonies each, some of which carry sentences of up to 14 years in prison. Six serious offenses were related to forgery and the others related to pronunciation and publication.
Problems for prosecutors
Simmons said Monday that Shock’s lack of preparation for his latest round of testimony, including not remembering when the investigation began, was a “clear” problem as he considers whether to send the case to trial.
It wasn’t Shock’s first blunder. In earlier testimony, he identified former Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” a claim Nessel’s office later denied.
Shock also called Trump an unindicted co-conspirator, which the attorney general’s office says is accurate.
Zammit and defense attorneys have suggested that if anyone knowingly prepared a false document, it was lawyers for the Trump campaign. The former president has been personally charged in a similar case in Georgia, and some of his top associates face charges in Wisconsin.
In an interview with Bridge last week, Nessel said his office is not yet “ruling out anything” in the Michigan case, including possible charges against Trump or high-profile allies.
“There are many other actors who are being held accountable at several different levels in federal courts and in other states,” said Nessel, a Democrat. “But we thought it was really important to start with these individuals here in Michigan and let the facts unfold.”
Tampering with voting machines in Oakland County
At least one of Michigan’s 2020 election cases may go to trial this year: an alleged plot to illegally seize voting machines and examine them in a failed attempt to prove they were rigged against Trump.
Attorney Stefanie Lambert’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2 before Oakland County Court Judge Jeffery Matis.
She was one of three people indicted in August 2023, along with attorney Matthew Deperno and former state Rep. Daire Rendon, in special counsel DJ Hilson’s investigation into the alleged tabulator manipulation scheme.
The three face several charges, including intentionally damaging a voting machine and conspiring to commit unauthorized access to a computer, which are punishable by up to four or five years in prison.
However, DePerno and Rendon will not go to trial anytime soon.
Their cases have been remanded to the 44th District Court in Royal Oak for probable cause conferences with Judge Derek Meinecke. Those hearings are currently scheduled to begin July 12.
Hilson, the special prosecutor, agreed to remand the cases for preliminary hearings that will determine whether DePerno and Rendon go to trial. In a December 2023 filing, Hilson said preliminary exams would help “avoid a later claim that there was an error in not performing one.”
He cited the dismissal of criminal charges in the Flint water crisis, where the Michigan Supreme Court ultimately agreed that defendants who were indicted by a single-person grand jury should have been granted preliminary examinations.
More problems for Stefanie Lambert
Lambert was arrested for contempt of a court order in March after missing a hearing in the Oakland County gerrymandering case while in Washington, D.C., to defend businessman Patrick Byrne in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
Dominion is seeking to disqualify Lambert from the lawsuit because he allegedly provided confidential court records about his election machines to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who then posted them on social media. She has stated that she had a duty to provide “evidence” to the authorities.
Lambert is also involved in another Michigan criminal case involving election interference in Hillsdale County’s Adams Township.
In May, Nessel’s office announced felony charges against Lambert and former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott after the latter blocked routine maintenance on local voting equipment. Election officials say their actions were a misguided attempt to preserve 2020 voting data.
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