(Washington) Sixteen supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump have been charged in Michigan – including for falsifying documents – in connection with the “false voters” case, aimed at reversing the results of the presidential election of 2020.
The charges announced in this state in the northern United States are the first against participants in the project which attempted – illegitimately – to proclaim Donald Trump the winner in seven American states.
If this project had succeeded, the Republican would have kept the White House at the expense of Joe Biden.
The scheme’s failure is considered one of the triggering events for the assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021 – the day Joe Biden was certified as winning.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that about three weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, the 16 defendants met “secretly” in the basement of Michigan’s Republican Party headquarters. They had then signed documents in which they certified to be electors of Michigan, she specified.
These false certificates were then sent to the United States Senate with the aim of having their votes counted instead of those of the real voters of Michigan, and thus proclaiming Donald Trump the winner in this state.
In the United States, the president is chosen by indirect universal suffrage, with each state allocating its electors, whose number depends essentially on its population, to the candidate who comes first locally.
“This scheme — to overthrow the will of voters and undermine democracy — was fraudulent and without legal basis,” the Michigan attorney general said.
The 16 defendants face several counts, including criminal association, and forgery and use of forgery. They face up to 14 years in prison.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced at the same time that he had received a letter from prosecutors informing him that he was personally targeted by the federal investigation into the assault on the Capitol.
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is investigating the fake voters project as part of his broader investigation of Donald Trump and his role in particular around the events of January 6, 2021.
Two lawyers close to Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman are accused of having piloted the false voters project, and are supposedly targeted by the investigation of the prosecutor Smith.