MADISON, Wis. — Two lawyers for then-President Donald Trump orchestrated a scheme for fake voters to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states making, according to a lawsuit reached Monday that makes months of text messages and emails public.
Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, detailing the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, they adopted the strategy in six other states, including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.
The agreements settle a civil lawsuit Democrats filed in 2022 against the two lawyers and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake voters. The Republicans settled in December.
“Our democracy demands better than this,” said Scott Thompson, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who helped negotiate the agreements. “That is why this lawsuit … consistently sought transparency, accountability and deterrence. We cannot let this happen again.”
There is no admission of wrongdoing or liability in the agreements in which Chesebro and Troupis promise never to participate in similar efforts related to future presidential campaigns. Troupis must also pay an undisclosed amount to the plaintiffs.
Phone and text messages sent to Troupis and Chesebro on Monday were not immediately returned.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors will be sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to determine the outcome.
The documents show how Chesebro and Troupis, Trump’s lawyer in Wisconsin, used arcane laws to rationalize and prepare the fake certificates for the fake voters. They also reveal how the two strategically delay deadlines for certifying electoral votes and influence public opinion, including floating ideas on conservative talk radio.
In November 2020, while awaiting a decision from the then-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court on Trump’s attempt to invalidate thousands of votes in the state, Chesebro suggested Troupis contact conservative radio hosts in Milwaukee and Madison: Is there any chance that the SCOW (Wisconsin Supreme Court) justices will hear this soon and pre-empt the case?”
He ended with a winking emoji.
The voter fraud efforts are at the center of a federal indictment filed against Trump in August, alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors, who are investigating his conduct in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, have also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump also faces charges in Georgia and has denied wrongdoing.
Michigan and Nevada have filed criminal charges against fake voters, but there is no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has suggested he is relying on federal investigators but has also not ruled out a state investigation. Lawyers who negotiated the settlement said the information in the documents has already been provided to Kaul’s office.
Monday’s agreements were announced by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Law Forward and the Madison-based law firm Stafford Rosenbaum.
Prosecutors say the documents show how Troupis, an attorney who has represented the Republican Party of Wisconsin and is a former judge, was intimately involved in the origins of the attempt.
Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden, a Democrat, by fewer than 21,000 votes.
At Troupis’s urging, Chesebro drafted memos in the final months of 2020 detailing how to prepare and sign the fake voter certificates. The documents include a 10-minute video of the fake voters cheering and taking photos as they cast and signed their ballots for Trump at the Wisconsin State Capitol.
There is no direct communication with Trump in the documents, but there are exchanges with top campaign aides and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
A day after Chesebro shared a memo on strategies on December 6, Troupis followed up via text: “I sent it to the White House this afternoon. The real decision makers.”
A December 16 afternoon meeting with Trump in the Oval Office is briefly mentioned, where both men were present along with others. Three days later, Chesebro references Trump’s social media post calling followers to Washington on January 6, saying, “Be there, it’ll be wild!”
“Wow. Based on three days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this,” Chesebro texted Troupis.
Trump campaign officials did provide their assessment of each state’s progress on the bogus election plan.
“Wisconsin appears to be the most organized state so far,” concludes a December 11, 2020 email from Trump campaign staffer Joshua Findlay to Chesebro.
“This all came from Wisconsin and spread to other states,” said attorney Mary McCord of the Georgetown Institute, who helped negotiate the settlement. “That was an important part of the story that led to the violence on January 6.”
After the deadly attack on the Capitol, the lawyers discussed falsely shifting blame from Trump supporters to members of the anti-fascist movement, among others.
“It would be nice if Trump surrogates could convey that without Antifa’s role in the actual break-in… the scene at the Capitol would have been completely peaceful. And that Trump could not have reasonably foreseen this,” Chesebro wrote in a text message to Troupis.
He added: “The president can put this behind him if he invites Biden and (Vice President Kamala) Harris for coffee on inauguration morning and attends the (virtual) inauguration.”
Government and outside investigations have conclusively found that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have affected the 2020 election. But Trump has continued to spread falsehoods about the election.