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The cases, which stem from efforts to keep Donald J. Trump in office after his 2020 loss, are proceeding even as Mr. Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Dec. 12, 2024Updated 5:30 p.m. ET
In a flurry of moves on Thursday, state prosecutors made clear that they are pressing forward with criminal cases against Donald J. Trump and his allies related to interference in the 2020 election.
In Wisconsin, three of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s former advisers, who are facing numerous felony charges, appeared before a judge for the first time. In Nevada, the state attorney general, Aaron D. Ford, filed new charges in an effort to revive a case against six Republicans who acted as fake electors for Mr. Trump in 2020, in spite of his loss at the polls there.
And in Georgia, Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, pushed back against an attempt by Republicans in Congress to subpoena documents related to her prosecution of Mr. Trump and his allies. In a letter to Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Ms. Willis wrote that the committee’s “dogged attempt to disrupt an independent state prosecution is an unconstitutional perversion of congressional oversight authority.”
The defendants in Wisconsin, two of whom appeared via telephone before a state judge in Madison, are all expected to plead not guilty to 11 felony charges. They include Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native who devised a plan to deploy fake electors for Mr. Trump in swing states that he lost in 2020, and Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign adviser who played a major role in carrying out the plan.
The third defendant, James R. Troupis, is a Wisconsin lawyer who circulated the fake elector plan within the Trump campaign. The Trump team’s strategy ultimately involved submitting paperwork to federal officials falsely claiming that Mr. Trump had won several battleground states; it led to criminal prosecutions in Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
The Thursday hearing took place in a Wisconsin courtroom with about 30 onlookers, many of whom appeared to be supporters of the defendants. Mark R. Fremgen, the circuit court commissioner, set bond terms for the men, including that they refrain from contact with any of the 10 people who acted as fake electors in Wisconsin. All three, through their lawyers, agreed to the terms.
