The deputy attorney general on Tuesday acknowledged that the department is looking into fake Electoral College certificates submitted by Trump supporters in the wake of the 2020 election.
Law enforcement officials in multiple states have referred the fake certificates to federal authorities.
“We’ve received those referrals,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CNN Tuesday. “Our prosecutors are looking at those and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations.”
The fake certificates — from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — were the result of groups of would-be Trump electors gathering in the wake of the last election and declaring that they, in fact, represented the true winner in their state. (The documents from New Mexico and Pennsylvania acknowledged that their electoral votes would only take effect in the result of the election being overturned.)
Attorneys general in Michigan and New Mexico said this month that they’d referred the fake documents to federal prosecutors. The congressional Jan. 6 Committee is also looking into the fakes.
The watchdog group American Oversight first published the documents in March last year, the result of a records request to the National Archives and Records Administration, but the fake slates gained new attention when MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow noted they appeared to follow a template, suggesting coordination between states. The Washington Post and CNN subsequently reported on that coordination, specifically that it was led by Rudy Giuliani and others in Trump’s orbit.
It’s not clear if anyone will face legal consequences for the documents, which include signatures from prominent Republican political figures and party officials.
“What went on was certainly intentionally misleading,” Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg told NPR. “But I think it is one of those areas probably not contemplated by those who drafted the laws, so the specific statutes are not immediately obvious — as bad as this was.”
Funny how it’s never Democrats.
Mmmm, no. What they said is that they had referred their criminal investigations to federal prosecutors. That, of course, includes the alternafraud docs. But, to have a criminal investigation to refer, you have to, you know, investigate. Anyone hear of any investigation action by the AGs of AZ, GA, NV, PA, WI? Saying wishful things about how they hope the feds do something is not a referral. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/13/michigan-ag-nessel-refers-gop-electors-review-federal-prosecutors/6521827001/
ETA: neither is a single, lone congressman asking the FBI to look into it is a referral.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t each and every one of these criminal frauds guilty of signing a statement – notarized, even – legally attesting to the truthfulness of their representations?
Continuing the discussion from Deputy Attorney General Says DOJ Looking Into Fake Trump Electors | Talking Points Memo:
What did Ginsburg mean? My take is that the AGs should throw the book at the crooks.
Sometimes a new drug emerges as a recreational thing and for a while they don’t get around to making it illegal. That was the case for a time with LSD. But it would be one hell of a thing if you couldn’t charge people for an attempt to steal a presidential election precisely because that attempt was so unheard-of, so outrageous, so beyond the bounds of anything ever contemplated that there was no law it violated to base a charge on. Rudy should be in the deepest, most dank and vermin-ridden dungeon we have, and if we don’t have one bad enough then one should be built, and so should every freak in the previous administration who countenanced this for one moment and anyone else involved and of course I mean anyone including the omelet-station guy at Mar-a-Lago.