Exams conclude for final 3 defendants charged in 2020 Michigan fake elector scheme
James Renner at the witness stand in 54-A District Court in Lansing, Michigan Feb. 14, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
Exams wrapped up Wednesday for the final three people charged with submitting false electoral votes for former President Donald Trump in 2020.
The three defendants, Stanley Grot, Timothy King and Kent Vandwerwood, had their cases back in court this week in front of Ingham County District Judge Kristen Simmons, who will decide whether there is enough evidence against those charged in the case to send them on to trial in circuit court.
Grot, King and Vanderwood were among 16 people charged last year by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office with several felonies, accused of fraudulently submitting fake electoral votes for former President Donald Trump to the U.S. Senate and National Archives.
Each defendant faces eight counts including charges of forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, uttering and publishing, conspiracy to commit uttering and publishing, election law forgery and conspiracy to commit election law forgery. The forgery-related charges each carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, while the election law charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
A 16th defendant, James Renner, had his charges dropped as part of a cooperation agreement with the Attorney General’s Office, in exchange for testifying on behalf of the prosecution.
Renner was on the stand Tuesday and Wednesday, recalling the circumstances that led to he and the 15 defendants meeting on Dec. 14, 2020, at the Michigan Republican Party headquarters in Lansing. At that meeting, prosecutors say they signed documents identifying themselves as the rightful electors of Michigan, and then attempted to cast the state’s electoral votes for former President Donald Trump.
That was despite the fact that President Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, and a Democratic panel of electors were the rightful group to submit the state’s electoral votes. But conspiracies over election fraud, spearheaded by Trump, led many in the state of Michigan to question and deny the integrity of the 2020 election. Trump continues to make the false claims as he campaigns for a second term.
As he testified in December, Renner said there was never any discussion to the group that the documents were, in fact, illegal, but instead that should the election be overturned and Trump be determined to have won the 2020 presidential election, the paperwork would ensure that the appropriate partisan electors would be counted and Michigan could submit its votes for Trump.
Renner was one of two last-minute replacements for original elector candidates Terri Lynn Land, a former secretary of state, and Gerald Wall, neither of whom attended the Dec. 14, 2020, gathering.
Renner testified that after signing the document, the group later walked it over to the Capitol building to try and deliver it to the state Senate, but were denied entry as the legal Electoral College was meeting to cast their votes for Biden. A video of that encounter was played in court and confirmed by Renner as authentic. At the time of the attempted delivery, the lawful Democratic electors were gathered inside and casting their ballots as prescribed by law.
Renner also testified to the presence of Ian Northon, who he said he had first noticed joining the group as they walked to the Capitol. Northon is an attorney who was identified by former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) to the Jan. 6 committee as one of those pressuring him on behalf of the Trump campaign to illegally appoint fake electors.
Defense attorneys worked to portray their clients as having been misled by others leading the effort, such as Northon, but also Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who has admitted to orchestrating a multi-state fake elector plot to present fake elector documents in favor of a Trump presidency, and who pleaded guilty in October 2023 to a felony count in Georgia as part of that plot.
He is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Michigan case, along with Trump, and several others, including Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani.
Also testifying was Howard Shock, a special agent investigator with the Michigan Department of Attorney General, who conducted the investigation that led to the charges. He previously revealed that Chesebro had been cooperating with their investigation, including turning over an email that contained a copy of a false certificate that the defendants later signed.
Defense attorneys in all three sets of hearings have argued that their clients believed they were filling out the document as an alternate slate of electors, and not as the duly sworn electors required by law to cast their votes for the winner of Michigan’s popular vote, which was Biden.
At one point, Grot’s attorney, Derek Wilczynski, asked Shock if there was any law that he was aware of that said that the Republican electors were not allowed to cast their votes for President Trump and Vice President Pence even though the Democratic electors were legally empowered to do so as Biden had won the popular vote.
“So what I found was there was election law that lays out how the party that receives the popular vote, casts the (electoral) votes, but nothing in the law that I found that says the Republican Party can’t cast their votes,” said Shock.
On redirect, Assistant Attorney General LaDonna Logan had Shock confirm that the document the defendants all signed affirmed that as required by Michigan’s faithful electors provision, MCL 168.47, they were casting their votes for Trump and Pence as the duly sworn electors, which they were not.
Shock was also asked by Vanderwood’s attorney Brian Lennons whether there was a witness or a document that would confirm his client ever reviewed any documents, altered or not, by Kenneth Chesebro or anyone else from the Donald Trump campaign.
“Just the one with his signature on it,” replied Shock.
Simmons initially decided in January to split up the docket into two groups, with preliminary exams concluding in April for the first six defendants, which included Michigan GOP National Committeewoman Kathleen Berden, former Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, Amy Facchinello, John Haggard, Mari-Ann Henry and Michele Lundgren.
A second group — Rose Rook, Clifford Frost, Marian Sheridan, Kenneth Thompson, William Choate and Mayra Rodriguez — had their exams conclude in June.
Grot, King and Vandwerwood, had their cases adjourned to later dates for various reasons, and were eventually scheduled together to be held this week.
At the conclusion of Wednesday’s hearing, Wilczynski requested that the defense attorneys receive transcripts of all the hearings before they filed briefs against binding over their clients for trial.
Simmons, as she had to previous requests for transcripts, rejected the request as well as a follow-up motion by Wilczynski that another hearing be held once the transcripts were available.
“I’m not inclined to carry this matter over any further, because this matter should have been wrapped up a while ago. Remember, I separated this into two factions, not three, and so this was because three of you all failed to comply with the other court dates. And so I’m not going to set this out an additional time,” she said.
It’s not known how long Simmons will take to render her decision, although prosecution briefs are expected within the next 30 days, with defense attorneys having at least 30 days after that to respond.