6 Michigan false electors appear in court for preliminary exams; lawyer gets booted – Detroit News
Lansing — Michigan elections director Jonathan Brater testified in court Wednesday that he contacted the Attorney General’s office after finding out about a certificate state Republicans signed falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Brater’s revelation highlighted the first day of preliminary examinations in the criminal cases of six of the 16 Republicans whose names appeared on the certificate, which was part of an attempt to flip Michigan’s 16 electoral votes to Trump although Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan in November 2020.
Over about seven hours of testimony in Ingham County District Court, prosecutors from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office and defense lawyers repeatedly clashed over what the importance of the false certificate was, Michigan election law and even who could be in the courtroom.
The examinations will continue Thursday with Ingham County District Court Judge Kristen Simmons eventually having to decide whether the Attorney General’s office has established probable cause for the eight felony charges it’s brought against each of the Republicans to proceed to trial.
On Jan. 8, 2021, Brater said he got an email from the U.S. National Archives, informing him that the Archives had received a certificate from Republican electors in Michigan. Within a day or two, Brater testified that he contacted Heather Meingast, an assistant attorney general, about the matter.
“It was unusual to be informed that there had been a separate set of electors that had been sent in to the Archives,” said Brater, who works under Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Garett Koger, a lawyer representing Kathy Berden, one of the Republicans who signed the certificate, argued that Brater found the document to be “odd” but “not criminal” and that there was precedent for an alternate slate of electors. Koger asked Michigan’s elections director if his immediate reaction to the certificate was that it was a criminal act.
“I don’t remember,” Brater responded.
LaDonna Logan, an assistant attorney general, described the false certificate as “the body of the crime.”
“It sparked the state investigation,” Logan said.
But defense lawyers questioned whether electors could have signed the certificate’s second page without reading the first page, which featured the false statements about the 2020 election and the claim the Republicans were “duly elected and qualified.”
The preliminary exams are the first serious test of the charges Nessel, a Democrat, launched in July against the group of Republicans who falsely claimed to be Michigan’s presidential electors as Trump’s campaign sought to challenge Biden’s victory in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
The six Republicans whose cases were before Simmons on Wednesday included former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chairwoman Meshawn Maddock of Milford and Berden, formerly of Snover, who is Michigan’s current Republican national committeewoman.
Maddock and Berden sat in the first row of the small courtroom, which had about 30 people in it Wednesday. Maddock told reporters after court adjourned that the charges represented a “political witchhunt.”
The other four Republican electors present Wednesday were Amy Facchinello of Grand Blanc, John Haggard of Charlevoix, Mari-Ann Henry of Brighton and Michele Lundgren of Detroit.
On July 18, Nessel announced charges against all 16 of the Republicans who signed the certificate on Dec. 14, 2020, claiming to cast Michigan’s 16 electoral votes for Trump.
The certificate was eventually sent to Congress and the National Archives despite Biden winning Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement over the summer.
Each elector initially faced eight felony counts, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election law forgery.
Nessel’s office dropped the charges against one of the 16 electors, James Renner of Lansing, as part of a cooperation deal in October. Other Republican electors will have their preliminary exams next year.
The Attorney General’s office presented three witnesses on Wednesday with potentially seven more coming on Thursday. The first three were Brater; James Van de Putte, a U.S. Postal Service employee whose staff tracked the certificate that was mailed; and Capt. Darren Green of the Michigan State Police, who was at the Michigan Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, when some of the Republicans unsuccessfully tried to enter building during the convening of Michigan’s Electoral College with Biden’s electors.
At one point Wednesday, Judge Simmons ordered Aaron Van Langevelde, a former member of the Board of State Canvassers who’s now working for the Attorney General’s office, to leave the courtroom. Van Langevelde, who’s a lawyer, has been working for Nessel since at least February.
Defense lawyers, including Mary Chartier, who’s representing Haggard, contended that Van Langevelde could eventually be called as a witness because he cast the deciding vote in November 2020 to certify the 2020 presidential election.
“I do think that it’s important to place on the record that they are creating quite the conflict,” Chartier said.
Van Langevelde was one of five staff members of the Attorney General’s office who were present for the preliminary exams before Simmons agreed with the defense lawyers and ordered him sequestered, meaning he had to leave the room so he couldn’t hear witnesses’ remarks.
Logan of the Attorney General’s office had been questioning Brater, Michigan’s elections director, about the certification of the 2020 presidential election when defense lawyers raised their concerns about Van Langevelde.
“There is no conflict because this document speaks for itself,” Logan said of the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Van Langevelde had been a Republican member of the Board of State Canvassers in November 2020. He voted with two Democrats to certify the election.
The Republicans have contended they were acting as directed by Republican leaders in gathering on Dec. 14, 2020, and signing the certificate. They’ve also maintained they didn’t intend to defraud anyone, a required element that prosecutors must establish for the charges to succeed.
cmauger@detroitnews.com