Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel walks to her seat earlier than the State of the State handle on Jan. 25 on the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich.

Al Goldis/AP

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Al Goldis/AP

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel walks to her seat earlier than the State of the State handle on Jan. 25 on the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich.

Al Goldis/AP

Michigan’s lawyer common has announced prices in opposition to 16 individuals for serving as so-called faux electors following the 2020 presidential election.

The electors signed paperwork falsely testifying that Donald Trump received the state within the election. Trump misplaced Michigan to Joe Biden.

The broader faux elector scheme is a part of particular counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing federal investigation into Trump and the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Those charged in Michigan embrace Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the state Republican Party. Each defendant faces a slew of felony prices together with election regulation forgery.

“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,” Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, stated in an announcement Tuesday.

The assertion particulars:

These defendants are alleged to have met covertly within the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14th, and signed their names to a number of certificates stating they had been the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.” These false paperwork had been then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their selecting, rather than the candidates really elected by the individuals of Michigan.

The prices in Michigan got here hours after Trump revealed that he received word that he’s a target of a federal grand jury probe investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump has known as the federal investigation into his actions a “witch hunt.”

Michigan was one in every of a number of states that noticed pro-Trump faux electors submit letters to the federal authorities. Some faux electors have defended their actions by saying they had been merely doing so in case Trump’s challenges of the election had been profitable.