Michigan judge tosses out criminal charges against 2020 Trump false electors

Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Sep 9, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — An Ingham County judge threw out on Tuesday criminal charges against 15 Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, ruling that state prosecutors had failed to show an intent to commit fraud.

The decision from Judge Kristen Simmons, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, tossed aside Michigan prosecutors' most direct attempt to bring accountability for the bid to reverse the state's 2020 result.

Simmons in Ingham County's 54A District Court said she believes the Republicans were exercising their constitutional rights by seeking a redress of grievances about the election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

"This is a fraud case, and we have to prove intent and I do not believe there is evidence sufficient to prove intent," Simmons said, in front of a crowded courtroom of defendants, their lawyers and the media.

Over the last two years, Simmons has held three sets of preliminary examinations for the Republican electors who were facing felony forgery and uttering and publishing charges.

Simmons had the responsibility to decide whether Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office presented enough evidence to prove there's probable cause to believe crimes occurred.

The document the Michigan Republicans signed during a Dec. 14, 2020, gathering said they were Michigan's "duly elected and qualified" presidential electors and was eventually used by Trump advisers in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn his loss to Biden.

Biden had won Michigan's 16 electoral votes by defeating Trump by about 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, 51%-48%, in the November 2020 election.

The GOP electors pleaded not guilty and have contended they were acting on the advice of Republican lawyers and had no intent to defraud anyone — a required element of the charges.

About two dozen supporters of the Michigan Republican activists facing prosecution gathered outside of the courthouse an hour before the court hearing, chanting "Free the 15" and holding handmade signs that read "End Political Lawfare," "Nessel's Hoax," "Aren't there REAL Crimes to Prosecute?" and "Stop the Fake Charges!"

As defendants and their attorneys passed by, they stopped to thank the group for their support.

Robyn Peake, president of the Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan, found some encouragement in the delays in the case.

“There’s a possibility that they have been testing the political winds and how things have changed since Trump’s current term to see what is the public opinion and what is the tone of the United States at this point,” Peake said. “We’ve seen a lot of changes in the last almost 12 months and I think the political tone right now is different in the United States than it what it was.”

But Tom McMillin, a Republican member of the State Board of Education and former state lawmaker from Troy, expressed frustration with the length of the court process so far.

“These are years and years these people have had it over their head and she enjoys it,” McMillin said of Nessel’s office.

Sam Harris, a trustee for Waterford Township, called the case a “political prosecution.”

“It’s been going on for five years,” Harris said. “A lot of these people are older, it’s hurt them financially, bankrupt some, it’s affected their health.”

'A politically motivated witch hunt'

On July 18, 2023, Nessel first announced eight felony charges against each of the 16 Republicans whose names appeared on the false electoral certificate. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. One of the electors, James Renner of Lansing, reached a cooperation agreement with Nessel's office, and the charges were dropped against him.

"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 said in July 2023.

However, in the preliminary examinations, Nessel's prosecutors often struggled to establish that each of the 15 GOP electors had an intent to defraud. Renner, one of the state's key witnesses, testified that even he thought, at the time of signing, it was a "legitimate process."

"Where's the evidence of any intent that anybody had to commit to crime?" John Freeman, a defense lawyer from Troy, who's representing GOP elector Marian Sheridan of Bloomfield Hills, asked during one of the hearings in 2024.

"It's all wishful thinking," Freeman added. "It's a politically motivated witch hunt that has no basis in the evidence."

Prosecutors have contended that the false certificate itself, social media posts from some of the Republican electors and efforts to submit the false document to the Michigan Legislature and U.S. Congress reveal a scheme to improperly intervene in the 2020 election.