Kaul to Action
Plus: Protecting Nevada elections. 🗳️
Published June 7, 2024
This week proved that accountability for efforts to undermine our democracy isn’t just about Donald Trump’s criminal cases.
Wisconsin became the fifth state to announce criminal charges tied to the appointment of fake pro-Trump electors in 2020. Attorney General Josh Kaul vowed to protect “the integrity of our electoral process.”
Kenneth Chesebro, an architect of the electors strategy across seven states lost by Trump, was charged with forgery, as were Mike Roman and James Troupis. Chesebro also faces charges in Georgia; Roman is charged in Georgia and Arizona.
Laws differ from state to state, and each set of fake electors carried out its scheme differently, so state officials have reached different conclusions about which charges to bring and against whom. (We broke it down, state by state, in April.)
Elsewhere in accountability news, Rudy Giuliani may be disbarred in the District of Columbia for his part in the 2020 plot in Pennsylvania. Just last week, Jenna Ellis had her law license suspended in Colorado for three years. Similar efforts are moving forward against John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, and Sidney Powell faces calls for disbarment in Texas.
Protecting our elections means pushing for accountability at every level, not just for Trump but for everyone involved in attempts to undermine the will of the people.
This Week in Democracy
- Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced felony criminal charges against three former Trump advisors in connection with the fake electors plot in that state in 2020.
- The ethics board of the District of Columbia Bar recommended disbarment for former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The board said Giuliani violated attorney conduct rules in Pennsylvania when he sought to have that state’s 2020 election results overturned.
- The publisher behind the movie “2000 Mules,” which pushed a widely disproven conspiracy theory about ballot drop boxes, halted distrubution of the film and apologized to a Georgia man falsely accused of election fraud. The movie’s false claims were in circulation for two years.
- A federal judge ordered former Trump advisor Steve Bannon to report to prison July 1. Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress in 2022 for refusing to provide documents and testimony to the House January 6 Select Committee.
State of the States
In Georgia, the state Court of Appeals froze the criminal election interference case against former President Trump at least until October. The appeals court scheduled arguments for Oct. 4 on Trump’s attempt to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis disqualified. The trial judge previously ruled that Willis should not be disqualified. But the appeal almost certainly means Trump will not face trial in Georgia before the presidential election in November.
➡️ READ: Our backgrounder on the Georgia case
Recommended Listening
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar joined WBUR radio’s “On Point” to discuss safeguarding the state’s free and fair elections.
Recommended Reading
The New York Times profiled a Republican clerk in Nevada who’s standing up for the facts about her county’s elections in the face of lies, conspiracy theories, and a recall effort.
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