Michigan Trump electors get October, November court dates

Lansing — Most of the Michigan Republicans who are facing felony charges after signing a certificate falsely claiming Donald Trump won the state's 16 electoral votes in 2020 will be back in court for key hearings in October and November, a judge decided Friday.

Six of the 16 GOP electors will have their preliminary examinations on Oct. 12 while eight will have preliminary examinations on Nov. 2, according to schedules set by Ingham County District Court Judge Kristen Simmons. The examinations are where Simmons will decide whether there's enough evidence for prosecutors to establish probable cause and move the cases to trial.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has alleged the electors committed election law forgery by signing a false document in which they claimed to be the official electors for the state of Michigan. Trump, who was the incumbent president in 2020, lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, but his supporters attempted to reverse the result in the weeks that followed the Nov. 3, 2020, vote.

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Two of the GOP electors, Clifford Frost of Warren and Marian Sheridan of West Bloomfield, will have separate hearings in September and December.

Frost's lawyer, Kevin Kijewski, said he wanted an earlier hearing on a motion that he had filed. The motion asked the judge to ensure that Frost’s examination happens separately and distinctly, from the other electors.

Sheridan's lawyer, John Freeman, wanted his client's preliminary examination set for January, spurring Simmons to set another hearing for December.

"This is an incredibly complex set of facts and circumstances," Freeman said, arguing that he needed time to study the information.

Fourteen of the 16 electors appeared in Ingham County District Court over Zoom on Friday as Simmons planned the future paths of their criminal cases.

Nessel's office announced eight felony charges against each of the Republican electors on July 18.

Some of the GOP electors have previously said they signed the false certificate simply in case a future court decision reversed the election. Others have said they didn't know what they were signing when they wrote their name.

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As part of the push to undermine Biden's victory, Trump supporters gathered inside the then-Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and created the false electors certificate, claiming to cast the state's 16 electoral votes for Trump.

Eventually, the false certificate was sent to the National Archives and Congress. The document inaccurately claimed the Trump electors had met inside the Michigan Capitol. However, they hadn't. Biden's electors convened inside the Capitol, and the building was closed to others on Dec. 14, 2020.

"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," Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement last month.

Simmons previously set the preliminary examination for Meshawn Maddock, former co-chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party and one of the 16 GOP electors, for Oct. 12. Kathy Berden, Michigan's Republican national committeewoman, will also have her examination that day.

The examination for Stan Grot, an elector and the Shelby Township clerk, will be Nov. 2.

GOP elector Hank Choate's lawyer David Kallman said he planned to file multiple motions raising "constitutional" issues in the coming weeks.

Kallman didn't specify what those issues were during the hearing Friday morning.

Choate, a dairy farmer from Cement City in Jackson County, is scheduled to return to court for his preliminary examination on Nov. 2.

cmauger@detroitnews.com