SuperDS77
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2022
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Took awhile, but it appears these politically motivated prosecutions have been stopped.
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Lansing — An Ingham County judge threw out on Tuesday criminal charges against 15 Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, ruling that state prosecutors had failed to show an intent to commit fraud.
The decision from Judge Kristen Simmons, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, tossed aside Michigan prosecutors' most direct attempt to bring accountability for the bid to reverse the state's 2020 result.
Simmons in Ingham County's 54A District Court said she believes the Republicans were exercising their constitutional rights by seeking a redress of grievances about the election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden."
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"The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan," Nessel said in July 2023.
However, in the preliminary examinations, Nessel's prosecutors often struggled to establish that each of the 15 GOP electors had an intent to defraud. Renner, one of the state's key witnesses, testified that even he thought, at the time of signing, it was a "legitimate process."
"Where's the evidence of any intent that anybody had to commit to crime?" John Freeman, a defense lawyer from Troy, who's representing GOP elector Marian Sheridan of Bloomfield Hills, asked during one of the hearings in 2024.
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Lansing — An Ingham County judge threw out on Tuesday criminal charges against 15 Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, ruling that state prosecutors had failed to show an intent to commit fraud.
The decision from Judge Kristen Simmons, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, tossed aside Michigan prosecutors' most direct attempt to bring accountability for the bid to reverse the state's 2020 result.
Simmons in Ingham County's 54A District Court said she believes the Republicans were exercising their constitutional rights by seeking a redress of grievances about the election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden."
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'A politically motivated witch hunt'
On July 18, 2023, Nessel first announced eight felony charges against each of the 16 Republicans whose names appeared on the false electoral certificate. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. One of the electors, James Renner of Lansing, reached a cooperation agreement with Nessel's office, and the charges were dropped against him."The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan," Nessel said in July 2023.
However, in the preliminary examinations, Nessel's prosecutors often struggled to establish that each of the 15 GOP electors had an intent to defraud. Renner, one of the state's key witnesses, testified that even he thought, at the time of signing, it was a "legitimate process."
"Where's the evidence of any intent that anybody had to commit to crime?" John Freeman, a defense lawyer from Troy, who's representing GOP elector Marian Sheridan of Bloomfield Hills, asked during one of the hearings in 2024.
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