MI Election Lies, Falsehoods Cited In Latest Trump Indictment

MICHIGAN — A massive indictment accusing 19 people, including former President Donald Trump, of trying to reverse the 2020 election results noted election lies and misinformation that spread in Michigan.

Prosecutors said Trump and 18 others "refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump."

The indictment cites Michigan multiple times, including a claim Trump made with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a phone call, in which Trump claimed "a tremendous number of dead people" voted on Nov. 3, 2020 in Michigan.

Trump first claimed it was 18,000 dead people before revising it to "some unbelievably high number," prosecutors said.

There were 1,616 people who voted who were dead on Election Day, most of whom were absentee voters that died after mailing in their ballots but before the election occurred, according to a 2022 report from Michigan’s auditor general.

Prosecutors also noted former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani knowingly and unlawfully told the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that at least 96,600 mail-in ballots were fraudulent in Michigan.

Giuliani also claimed that Dominion voting machines in Antrim County switched 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden, a misleading claim, as the error was quickly fixed before the official count, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also noted a Nov. 20, 2020 meeting in the Oval Office, where then-President Donald Trump met with then-Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) and then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake), along with other Michigan GOP lawmakers.

In that meeting, prosecutors said election lies and misinformation was talked about in an effort to deem the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election results were fraudulent.

A few days after that meeting, prosecutors said Giuliani "made false statements" and "solicited" Michigan legislators "to unlawfully appoint presidential electors" for Trump during a presentation before the Michigan House Oversight Committee.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 Michigan Republicans in connection to the fake elector scheme to keep former President Donald Trump in power. All 16, including Michigan committeewoman for the Republican National Committee Kathy Berden pleaded not guilty.