Key Trump allies charged in fake electors scheme in Wisconsin – NBC News
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WASHINGTON — Three men involved in the so-called fake electors scheme to keep former President Donald Trump in office following his 2020 election loss have been charged in Wisconsin, according to court records.
Mike Roman, a Philadelphia native who served as the Trump campaign’s head of Election Day operations, was charged Tuesday, as was Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who struck a plea deal with prosecutors in a separate 2020 election case in Georgia in October. James Troupis, a former judge and Trump campaign attorney, was also charged in connection with the fake electors scheme.
Chesebro, Roman and Troupis are all charged with felony forgery, according to court records. They are charged for their role in getting a slate of pro-Trump electors to sign paperwork attesting, falsely, that Trump had won Wisconsin in the 2020 election. Similar slates of fake electors for Trump were organized in several states and charges have been brought in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat who brought the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Charging documents said that Troupis and Chesebro traveled by chartered jet to Washington for a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 16, 2020. Two days later, Troupis wrote to Chesebro that “nothing about our meeting with the President can be shared with anyone.” Then, the day after Christmas, Chesebro wrote back to Troupis that one way to delay Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021, would be to have then-Vice President Pence decline to open official elector forms verifying their state’s results from Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. “Obviously, the discussion of such tactical options is highly confidential,” he wrote, according to charging documents.
In a later message cited by prosecutors, Chesebro wrote on Jan. 4, 2021 that “Mike Roman is the guy on top of” delivering the fake elector slates to Congress. A law student then flew to meet Chesebro in Washington on Jan. 5.
“5 mins until I make the drop,” she wrote, according to prosecutors. “I feel like a drug dealer.”
The fake electors scheme is a major component of the charges that special counsel Jack Smith has brought against Trump in federal court in Washington, D.C. That case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, is currently on hold while the Supreme Court decides on Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from prosecution. The trial is unlikely to go forward before Election Day.
Chesebro and Troupis previously settled a lawsuit related to the fake electors in Wisconsin that resulted in the release of more than 1,000 pages of emails and text messages, though neither man admitted any liability or culpability. The released documents revealed more information about the scheme in Wisconsin, and 10 of the fake electors in the Badger State admitted as part of litigation in December that President Joe Biden won the state in 2020.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
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