MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.
Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed.
Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss.
Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.
The charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. Kaul is considering running for governor in 2026. He declined to comment.
Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and again last year but lost it in 2020 and tried unsuccessfully to overturn his defeat.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.
Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates.
The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver the document to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
They argued that the charges should be dismissed because no crime was committed in having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote.
They also argued that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges can’t legally be brought in state court.
They further argued that the facts showed no crime was committed and also because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the state’s attorney general.
The judge rejected all of their arguments.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith abandoned that case, saying that Trump’s return to the White House precluded attempts to federally prosecute him.
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