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This week on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper reported on how Republican electors assembled on Dec. 14, 2020 to cast fake electoral votes for former President Donald Trump in seven states that President Biden had won.
The alleged scheme is a prominent part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president. Smith alleges that Trump and his co-conspirators developed what he calls a “corrupt plan” across those seven states to stop “Biden electors” votes from being counted and certified” on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to Smith, one of those states was Michigan, where President Biden won the popular vote by more than 154,000 votes.
Cooper spoke with Blake Mazurek, Robin Smith and Tim Smith, three of the legitimate Democratic electors.
When they went to the state capitol to cast Michigan’s electoral vote on Dec. 14, 2020, they were accompanied by police amidst what officials were calling a credible threat of violence.
“They actually had snipers on top of the building to make sure we got in and were able to complete the process,” Smith said.
That same day, Republicans allegedly signed fraudulent electoral documents. Some tried to get into the state capitol, claiming they were legitimate electors.
Fifteen Republicans are now facing charges brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for their role in the alleged scheme.
One of them is Meshawn Maddock, who later co-chaired the Michigan Republican Party. On a radio show two days after the electoral vote was cast, Maddock said, “I along with the other 15 electors were guided by” attorneys for then-president Trump.
In December of 2023, investigators in Attorney General Nessel’s office spoke with an alleged architect of the fake electors scheme, Kenneth Chesebro. He told them that he spoke with Trump about the fake electors on Dec. 16, 2020.
“I explained the whole logic…because the alternate electors had voted, we had more time to win litigation,” Chesebro told investigators.
Prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are also pursuing criminal charges against some of the alleged fake electors in their states.
In Wisconsin, fake electors have not been criminally charged, but they were sued by some of the Democratic electors. As part of a settlement, the 10 fake electors admitted that they signed a document which was “used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.”
The former Wisconsin Republican Party chair Andrew Hitt, who was one of those fake electors, told 60 Minutes that he and the other fake electors were tricked by the Trump campaign.
Robin Smith, Blake Mazurek and Tim Smith have also filed a lawsuit against the fake electors in Michigan.
“This is about accountability and establishing that this is not OK,” Mazurek said. “This is not how a democratic system should work.”
Photos and video courtesy of Brendan Gutenschwager, USA Today Network, Associated Press & Getty Images.
The video above was originally published on February 18, 2024 and was produced and edited by Will Croxton. Georgia Rosenberg was the broadcast associate.
