Newly released reports detail the roots of the ‘fake voters’ program

Just five days after Election Day in 2020, a conservative attorney named Kenneth Chesebro emailed a former judge who worked for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, James R. Troupis, with an idea on how to overturn the results.

Through lawsuits, Mr. Chesebro said, the Trump campaign could allege “several systemic abuses” and, with ongoing legal proceedings underway, encourage the Legislature to appoint “alternative” pro-Trump electors who can be certified in place of the Biden electors chosen by voters.

“With such a cloud of confusion, at the very least, no votes from WI (and perhaps MI and PA) should be counted, perhaps enough to throw the election to the House of Representatives,” Mr Chesebro wrote to Mr Troupis, referring to the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Mr. Troupis quickly added Mr. Chesebro to Trump’s legal team, tasking him with laying out the plans in a series of memos that are now at the center of the indictment against Mr. Trump and a month later — with the help by Reince Priebus, the former White Chief of Staff of the House of Representatives – arranged a meeting with Mr Trump at the White House.

The email is the earliest known evidence of Mr. Chesebro’s involvement in what would become known as the bogus electoral plot. It was released Monday, along with a trove of more than 1,400 pages of text messages and emails belonging to Mr. Troupis and Mr. Chesebro when they settled a lawsuit filed against them in Wisconsin.

Taken together, the documents show in new detail how the Trump campaign’s litigation strategy was not designed to win in court so much as to provide cover for their political efforts. And they underline the central role that Mr Troupis – previously a little-known figure in the effort to overturn the election – played in advancing the plans.

The messages also describe how Mr. Chesebro worked to get the fake election documents into the hands of members of Congress, and how Mr. Chesebro — who has since pleaded guilty in Georgia to a conspiracy charge in connection with the scheme — led the mob fourth. who gathered in Washington on January 6, 2021, before a violent mob stormed the Capitol.

“Enjoy the history you made possible today,” Mr. Troupis wrote in a text message to Mr. Chesebro at 11:04 a.m. that day.

The new details come from the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the progressive law firm Law Forward and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center against Mr. Chesebro, Mr. Troupis and so-called fake voters in Wisconsin.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of legitimate presidential electors and voters in Wisconsin.

The alleged voters have already dealt with their part of the caseconceding that President Biden won the 2020 election.

Mr. Troupis and Mr. Chesebro agreed not to do similar work in the future, including not participating in a scheme to turn out fake voters.

The settlement also included a payment to the plaintiffs of an undisclosed amount.

“As these documents show, the fraudulent electoral plot originated in Wisconsin, with Trump campaign attorney James Troupis and legal counsel Ken Chesebro concocting the scheme that ultimately produced the false narrative used by the rioters to justify the attack on the Capitol ” said Mary McCord. , the director of Georgetown’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

Mr. Chesebro’s memos were at the center of the federal indictment against Mr. Trump on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election. They are being presented as evidence of how the Trump campaign’s plans shifted from legal challenges to what prosecutors describe as a criminal plot to “engineer a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”

The memos also became the basis for a strategy by conservative lawyers John Eastman and Trump, which a federal judge called a “coup in search of a legal theory.”

In a Nov. 19, 2020, email to Mr. Troupis, Mr. Chesebro wrote that the Trump lawyers should “take a stab at taking two bites at the apple — tie off, hoping to ultimately win on January 6, but also had to delay tying the apple.” lawsuit to try to win in the state Legislature on Dec. 8.

Several documents refer to a Dec. 15, 2020, meeting between Mr. Troupis and Mr. Chesebro with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.

“Pretty clearly national people realize that this wouldn’t happen if you, Reince and others hadn’t pushed for it!” Mr. Chesebro wrote to Mr. Troupis two days before the White House visit.

They were told to keep the meeting secret and not to bring anything with them for Trump to sign, according to the messages.

“Reince was very explicit in his admonition that nothing about our meeting with the president should be shared with anyone,” Mr. Troupis wrote to Mr. Chesebro afterward.

Mr. Chesebro gave his account of the meeting to prosecutors in Michigan investigating the bogus electoral plot. He said Mr. Priebus had told the men not to get Trump’s hopes up about his chances of victory, but Mr. Chesebro acknowledged he had not listened to that advice.

“We had until January 6 to win,” Mr. Chesebro recalled saying to Mr. Trump at the meeting: according to audio obtained by CNNand added: “That really got me in trouble after that.”

A lawyer for Mr. Troupis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Chesebro did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr Preibus declined to comment. A person familiar with his actions said he had recommended Mr. Troupis as a lawyer in Wisconsin, his home state, to the Trump campaign, but that he was not involved in the day-to-day legal efforts.

The person said he had arranged a “photo op” for the men only at Mr. Troupis’ request and that he had not met Mr. Chesebro or knew who he was until that day. The person gave a similar account of the meeting to Mr Chesebro, who said Mr Preibus did not want them to encourage the president to challenge the election results.

Still, both Mr. Troupis and Mr. Chesebro seemed to feel after the meeting that they had special knowledge of Mr. Trump’s plans.

After Mr Trump posted on Twitter that he would hold a rally in Washington on January 6: “Be there, it will be wild!” exhorting his followers in a message that served as a crucial call to action for far-right groups – Mr Chesebro wrote to Mr Troupis: “Wow. Based on three days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this.”

Although the plans originated in Wisconsin, reports indicate that the men saw Georgia as the key to achieving their goals.

“If Georgia is to appear before the Supreme Court on January 6, it would be a rather bossy move if, when Pence arrives in Georgia, he simply refuses to open any of the Georgian envelopes,” Mr. Chesebro wrote on December 26, 2020. He referred to Vice President Mike Pence’s ceremonial role in Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results.

On the morning of January 6, Mr. Chesebro said he had worked with Michael Roman, the Trump campaign’s director of Election Day operations, and that a day earlier he had given documents for the false voter slates to an aide to Representative Mike Kelly, Republican. of Pennsylvania. That aide took them to the Senate parliamentarian, he said.

“Excellent,” Mr. Troupis replied. “Tomorrow, let’s talk about the SCOTUS strategy for the future. Enjoy the history you made possible today.”

Mr Chesebro later sent a photo of himself with the crowd on January 6 at 12:26 p.m.

Mr. Troupis responded with an emoji of clapping hands.