Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) charged Trump campaign aide Michael Roman and attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and James Troupis with one felony count each of conspiracy to commit forgery, according to the criminal complaints.
Kaul said at a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol his investigation could result in more charges. Asked about the possibility of charges against the former president, Kaul said, “As I said, I’m not going to speak to any specific individual, but the investigation is ongoing, and decisions will be made based on the facts and the law, not on the identity of any individual.”
If convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. They are slated to make initial court appearances in September, and their cases will probably stretch past this fall’s election unless they reach plea deals.
Troupis and Chesebro did not respond to messages, and an attorney for Chesebro declined to comment. Roman’s attorney, Kurt Altman, said he and Roman just learned of the charges and are reviewing them.
After narrowly losing the 2020 election in Wisconsin, Trump sought recounts in the state’s two most Democratic areas and used that process to try to throw out hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots. The state Supreme Court rejected his efforts on Dec. 14, 2020, the day presidential electors around the country were to meet.
An hour after that ruling, 10 Republicans gathered in the state Capitol to sign paperwork claiming they were the state’s true electors. Trump allies held similar meetings in six other states and then sent official-looking paperwork claiming to be their states’ true electors to Congress, the National Archives and others.
Trump’s supporters used those filings to falsely claim the outcome of the 2020 election was in doubt and try to prevent Congress from certifying the results. Their efforts culminated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Troupis, Chesebro and Roman helped develop the elector strategy, according to public records. Troupis served a brief stint as a judge and has long been a go-to lawyer for Wisconsin Republicans; he was Trump’s lead attorney for the recount and legal challenge in Wisconsin.
Chesebro helped devise the overall plan and documented the Wisconsin meeting on his cellphone, according to photos and records. He wrote memos to Troupis soon after the election that provided the framework for having Republicans meet in states that Trump lost to Joe Biden. Roman, who served as Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, helped coordinate elector meetings around the country, according to documents.
Chesebro was charged last year with racketeering and other crimes in Georgia and as part of a deal pleaded guilty in October to a felony count of conspiring to file false documents. Roman has been charged with racketeering and other crimes in Georgia, and conspiracy, forgery and other crimes in Arizona. He has pleaded not guilty in Georgia and is expected to do the same Friday in Arizona.
Two days before the Republicans met as electors, Chesebro told Roman in a text message that he thought they should change the wording in the paperwork for the would-be electors in all states, according to the criminal complaints in Wisconsin. The issue arose after Republicans in Pennsylvania said they wanted the documents to specifically note they were meant to be used only if the election results were overturned.
Roman told Chesebro he didn’t support changing the language for other states in a Dec. 12, 2020, text message to Chesebro that is quoted in the criminal complaints.
In a text message the next day, Chesebro told Roman that Vice President Mike Pence or a senator acting as president of the Senate could refuse to count the electoral votes for some states and push their legislatures to decide who should serve as electors, according to the complaints. The effort could flip the presidential election from Biden to Trump.
“That’s the possible endgame I saw early on, which is why the Dec. 14 vote is so critical,” Chesebro texted Roman.
In an email days earlier, Chesebro credited Troupis with first outlining the plan to have the Republicans meet as electors, according to prosecutors.
Two days after the Republicans met as electors, Troupis, Chesebro and others met with Trump in the Oval Office. Days later, Troupis told Chesebro that “nothing about our meeting with the President can be shared with anyone,” according to the complaints.
The complaints detail the planning that went into the Wisconsin meeting and the extensive efforts to get the paperwork to Washington when it didn’t show up quickly through the mail. But the complaints do not mention Troupis’s efforts to get a copy of the paperwork to Pence through Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Jan. 6, 2021. An aide to Pence that day told Johnson’s chief of staff not to hand the documents over to Pence.
Wisconsin’s attorney general took a slower and more targeted approach to his investigation compared to those in other states. Unlike his counterparts, Kaul did not charge any of the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who signed the elector paperwork and instead went after those who arranged for them to meet.
Among those who signed the paperwork was Andrew Hitt, the chairman of the state Republican Party at the time. In December, he said he and the others “were tricked and misled into participating in what became the alternate elector scheme and would have never taken any actions had we known that there were ulterior reasons beyond preserving an ongoing legal strategy.”
Hitt made the comment after reaching a settlement with two of the state’s true electors who filed a lawsuit against Republicans. Under the settlement, Hitt and the others agreed not to serve as electors any time Trump is on the ballot and told the National Archives they were rescinding their false paperwork claiming to be electors.
Troupis and Chesebro reached a separate settlement in March in that lawsuit. As part of the agreement, they released hundreds of pages of documents about the endeavor.
The county clerks whose areas were targeted for recounts by Trump praised the decision to bring charges, saying they would deter others from trying to overturn elections. “Attempting to engage in insurrection or coups are deeply un-American and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” said a statement from Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell (D) and Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson (D).
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) was terse about the development, releasing a one-word statement about the news. “Good,” he said.
Yvonne Wingett Sanchez in Phoenix contributed to this report.
