President Donald Trump issued a sweeping round of pardons Monday, including orders that preemptively shield 16 state Republicans from federal indictments for trying to pass themselves off as presidential electors following the 2020 election when the Democratic ticket carried Michigan.
Trump called the slate of would-be electors, who have not been
charged with any federal crimes, victims of state overreach who “deserve immediate relief and freedom from this partisan oppression.”
The beneficiaries of the pardons include former Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock. She and 15 others met at the state GOP headquarters and signed unofficial certificates and attempted to present them at the Michigan Capitol as electors for President-elect Joe Biden were
gathering to cast votes for the Democratic ticket.
In the pardon, Trump called the Republicans “contingent electors” who had broken no laws.
Trump has continued to dispute that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, despite that federal agencies and courts have found no evidence to support the claim, and Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.
The would-be electors’ defense was they represented an alternative slate as the election results were being contested.
“Although the contingent electors acted lawfully within established Constitutional traditions, many of them are facing years in prison and massive financial and other hardships,” wrote Trump. “At no time in our country’s history have contingent electors or those associated with them been prosecuted criminally for their actions taken to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. These citizens have not violated any law, but instead advanced core Constitutional principles to challenge significant and provable irregularities in the Election.”
While the pardons inoculate the false electors from federal prosecution, they are not shielded from state charges. Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel filed conspiracy and forgery charges, but Lansing District Court Judge Kristen Simmons dismissed those in September on the grounds the state failed to show intent to commit a crime.
In a statement released Monday by her office, Nessel said she thinks there is a case to be made.
“In 2020, President Trump launched an all-out assault against American democracy in his efforts to overturn the presidential election results and preserve his hold on power,” she said. “Today, President Trump pardoned more than 70 individuals, many of whom authored, executed, or otherwise knowingly assisted the President’s plot and efforts to overturn the election. Any other characterization of this outrageous slate of pardons is only a further attack on our sacred ideals of a government by, for and of the people.”
Nessel said she is considering an appeal to a higher court. She did not set a timeline on that decision.
Michigan Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad said the district court decision should be the final word on the state’s prosecution.
“It never should have been filed,” he said. “It was total lawfare against political opponents and I’m glad that the president has pardoned people so they can get on with their lives after (Nessel) attempted to destroy them all.”
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