2 former Trump associates bound over for trial in Wisconsin fake elector case

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MADISON, Wis. — Top architects of an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election were in a Wisconsin courtroom Monday facing felony charges related to a plan to gather signatures of Republicans falsely claiming to be electors for President Donald Trump.

Following a daylong hearing, Dane County Judge John Hyland ruled there is enough evidence to move forward with a trial in the case against Jim Troupis and Michael Roman, a former attorney and aide to Trump, for their alleged roles in the effort.

The judge will consider evidence separately against a third defendant, former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro.

The ruling came days after Troupis unsuccessfully sought to sideline every judge in Dane County from the case alleging misconduct on the part of Hyland and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson appealed to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate.

During the hearing Monday, Troupis filed a motion alleging that state prosecutors were violating his constitutional right to be protected from government overreach by putting forward a special agent as a witness who was unable to recall specific details of the investigation against the three defendants and instead largely relied on the criminal complaint to answer questions.

“As this Court is well aware, ‘the independent screening function of the preliminary examination serves as a check on the prosecutorial power of the executive branch,’” Troupis wrote in the motion.

“… a defendant must get a chance to test the criminal complaint. That’s been the law in this State for over 100 years,” Troupis wrote. “Against this backdrop, this Court should shut down the State’s ‘reader-witness’ if he does not have sufficient knowledge of the case.”

Hyland rejected similar objections during the hearing, arguing that the agent’s ability to answer questions from the criminal complaint was allowed.

Attorney General Josh Kaul in 2024 filed 11 counts of felony forgery charges against Chesebro, Roman and Troupis alleging the three lied to Republicans who signed paperwork falsely claiming to be electors for Trump in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election for former President Joe Biden.

According to the complaint, most of the electors said they did not consent to having their signatures presented without a court ruling.

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard University law professor and co-author of “How to Steal a Presidential Election,” testified for the defense that he did not believe the elector paperwork to be considered “fraudulent.”

Chesebro’s preliminary hearing was postponed in order to determine whether statements he made during interviews with investigators in battleground states over the fake elector plan were considered compelled, and therefore unable to be referenced in a hearing in a case naming him as a defendant.

Biden defeated Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win.

Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case. A separate federal lawsuit was still underway.

Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.

At the same time, the Republican fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won. They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Chesebro was in the room during the meeting.

The Republicans have said they held the meeting only to ensure the state’s electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state.

The 10 Republicans who signed paperwork claiming to be electors have not been charged criminally related to the fake documents.

Last year, the group settled a lawsuit filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the Republicans acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.