Trump’s campaign directed Michigan GOP to create fake electors, state GOP co-chair says

Michigan Republicans submitted certificates falsely claiming to be the state’s presidential electors after they were directed to do so by Trump’s campaign, Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock said in audio obtained by CNN.

“We fought to seat the electors,” Maddock said at a conservative gathering last week. “The Trump campaign asked us to do that. I’m under a lot of scrutiny for that today.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is asking the Justice Department to investigate Maddock and other Republicans for submitting the false certificate, which claimed Trump won the 2020 election. On Tuesday, Nessel said there’s “absolutely” enough evidence to warrant charges against the 16 Republicans who signed the certificate.

Biden won the election in Michigan by 3 percentage points.

As Democrats gathered in the state Capitol to certify the election on Dec. 14, Republicans, including Maddock and her husband state Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, disregarded state law and held their own caucus with an alternate slate of delegates to “certify” the election for Trump. They tried to enter the building but were stopped by the Michigan State Police.

In the certificates, which they sent to Vice President Mike Pence, the Michigan Secretary of State, the National Archivist, and the chief judge of the western district of Michigan, the Republicans falsely claimed they had signed the documents in the Michigan Capitol.

In a speech after they were denied access to the building, Maddock declared Republicans weren’t backing down.

"If the fake news and the leftist Democrats and even the deep state never-Trumper Republicans and the media and big tech, if they think that voters who have been disenfranchised and do not trust our election system right now are just going to go away, if they think we're just going to roll over after what we've witnessed has happened and that we're ever going to trust our elections again, they're wrong," Maddock said.

In the audio obtained by CNN, Maddock said her husband “fought for investigations into every part of the election we could.”

The Maddocks have played a major role in spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the election.

In the Legislature, Matt Maddock made several attempts to overturn the election. In late December, he and Daire Rendon, R-Lake City, joined a federal lawsuit filed by Trump supporters to challenge the results of the election. The suit asked a judge to allow lawmakers to certify states' election results, a move that would enable the Republican-led Michigan Legislature to reject Biden's victory. But a judge turned down the suit, calling their arguments "flat-out wrong" and "a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution."

Meshawn Maddock helped organize and promote buses of supporters from suburban Detroit to Washington, D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a riot.

A day before the rally, Matt Maddock and 10 other Republican lawmakers from Michigan wrote a letter to Pence, urging him not to certify the election, questioning "the validity of hundreds of thousands of ballots" in battleground states.

Later in the day, Meshawn Maddock, flanked by enormous Trump flags, delivered a speech to thousands of people, saying "over 19 buses" were headed from Michigan to Washington, D.C.

"No matter what happens today or tomorrow, I know that God reigns, we trust the Lord, but we never stop fighting,” Maddock said.

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