AP, Getty Images
James Tulpis, Ken Chesbro, Mike Roman.
CNN
—
Wisconsin’s attorney general on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against three of Donald Trump’s top aides, accusing them of submitting a false electoral roll and trying to unfairly rig the 2020 presidential election, according to online court records.
Three of them – right-wing lawyer Kenneth Chesbro, who helped engineer the fake electoral college scheme, former Trump lawyer Jim Troupis and former Trump campaign official Michael Roman – have each been charged with forgery.
Wisconsin is the latest state to indict people with ties to the former president in connection to a broad effort to overturn the results of the presidential election. State prosecutors in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia have also filed charges against associates of Trump.
An attorney for Chesbro declined to comment. CNN has contacted attorneys for Troupis and Roman.
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, responded to the accusations Tuesday with one word: “Good.”
CNN previously reported that Chesbro was cooperating with investigations into the electoral fraud scheme in at least four states, including Wisconsin, and his lawyers believed his cooperation would be enough to avoid prosecution.
But the complaint suggests Chesebro made false statements to investigators about his social media use, which may have contributed to prosecutors indicting him despite his previous cooperation. The complaint specifically points to an investigation by CNN’s KFile that uncovered Chesebro’s secret Twitter account.
Last year, Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors denied their attempt to overturn President Trump’s 2020 defeat, recognized the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory, and, as part of a civil lawsuit settlement, pledged not to serve as real electors in 2024 or any election in which President Trump is running, nor to serve as fake electors in any future elections.
The 10 fake electors released a statement admitting that the false certificate they signed in December 2020 was “used as part of an attempt to illegally overturn” the legitimate election results.
“We hereby reaffirm that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the 2020 Presidential Election and that we were not Wisconsin’s duly elected presidential electors in the 2020 Presidential Election,” the statement read in part. “We oppose any attempt to undermine public confidence in the final results of the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Chesebro was previously indicted and pleaded guilty in the Georgia investigation and has also been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in an Arizona criminal investigation focused on efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal election case against President Trump.
Roman was indicted in both the Georgia and Arizona cases.
While Tulpis has not been charged in any other criminal cases related to the 2020 election, evidence has emerged linking him to a fraudulent electoral scheme in Wisconsin and other key battleground states.
A series of emails and text messages released as a result of a lawsuit earlier this year provided further evidence that Chesebro had been pushing for Trump to go ahead with his plans for the Electoral College regardless of whether he won his lawsuit challenging the election results, undermining Chesebro’s testimony to state prosecutors that the fake Electoral College was contingent on winning the lawsuit.
According to the newly released messages, Chesebro wrote a series of memos detailing what pro-Trump electors should do in each state in 2020, including an early December memo that Troupis claims he sent directly to the White House.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday relies heavily on communications previously reported by CNN and others.
Prosecutors cite text messages detailing how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman engaged in a last-minute effort to fly false electoral documents from Wisconsin and Michigan to Washington, D.C., just before Jan. 6, 2021.
The goal, according to the messages, was to deliver the false electoral certificates directly to then-Vice President Mike Pence, a point also vaguely mentioned in Smith’s federal indictment.
Chesbro discussed the incident when he was interviewed by Wisconsin investigators as part of the attorney general’s investigation into the election fraud scheme.
Wisconsin prosecutors questioned him “extensively” about the incident, a source familiar with the matter said at the time, noting that Chesbro described how a Wisconsin Republican Party staffer flew the certificate from Milwaukee to Washington and then delivered it to Chesbro.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Caitlin Polantz and Allison Main contributed to this report.
