Grassroots Conservatives, Party Leadership Defend Indicted Michigan GOP Electors

A grassroots activist protesting against the indictment of 16 Michigan GOP electors outside of a press conference in Macomb County, Mich., on July 19, 2023. (Steven Kovac/The Epoch Times)

Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel’s recent indictment of 16 duly elected GOP 2020 electors has done what many thought impossible. She has unified Michigan Republicans.

Republican grassroots voters, low and high-level party officers, local elected officials, state legislators, and members of Congress are all expressing outrage over Ms. Nessel’s charging the 16 with multiple counts of fraud and forgery for attempting to present themselves as an alternate slate of presidential electors to Congress, as that body on Jan. 6, 2021, certified the outcome of the election.

State Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) at a press conference in Macomb County, Mich. on July 19, 2023. (Steven Kovac/Epoch Times)

At a July 19 press conference—turned rally—in Macomb County, a voter named Peter told The Epoch Times, “I’ve seen first-hand the tactics of the communist regime in my native Poland.

“Nessel’s indictments are designed to scare her political opponents. She wants us to shut up. Don’t oppose the regime. And if you support Trump, we are coming after you.

“I’m with Trump 100 percent. He’s trying to warn people of the enemy within.”

A Gesture of ‘Good Faith’

State Representative Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) stunned many at the crowded press conference when he challenged President Joe Biden to pardon former-President Donald Trump in order to dispel once and for all any accusations about election interference on the part of the Biden administration.

In both oral remarks and a written statement, the six-foot-five-inch, 30-year-old, legislator also said, “Like a mafia thug, Dana Nessel is using 16 Michigan residents to ‘send a message’ to those who would seek legal remedies against systemic election corruption, inducing fear of being persecuted and prosecuted by a weaponized ‘justice’ system in the form of lawfare.”

Mr. Schriver told the audience, “I am not intimidated.”

He warned the crowd, “If we don’t do something now, we will be next.”

His call to action included people rallying to the side of the 16 electors to help them with their legal fees by donating through crowd-funding and other means.

Mr. Schriver said that if Ms. Nessel does not cease her prosecution, he expects huge numbers of people to peacefully protest “until the rule of law is restored.”

A Show of Defiance

When asked why she came out to a hastily called press conference at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, a Macomb County woman said, “We’re here to send a message to Nessel that we are not afraid. The tyranny of trying to scare people to keep us from asking questions and expressing our opinions must be stopped.

“If they succeed in silencing us, we won’t have a country anymore.”

Diane Saber, a precinct delegate from Macomb County said she suspects Ms. Nessel is engaging in a backhanded attack on the way Americans elect their president.

“We have an Electoral College. I know the leftists would like to go to a popular vote system. They blatantly disregard the Constitution,” she said.

Trump Supporters Targeted

A Congressional District Nine committeewoman, Melissa Pehlis, told The Epoch Times, “The communist regime here in Michigan is out to lawfare our people into silence. That means anybody that supports Trump.”

Her committee passed a resolution condemning Nessel’s indictments as a “blatantly political prosecution” and an effort to intimidate her party’s political opponents under the “color of law.”

The resolution said the 16 electors “desired only to post the requisite paperwork to preserve President Trump’s ability to meet legal deadlines in case his court appeals [of the election results] should succeed.”

A similar situation arose during the 1960 presidential election between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon in Hawaii—a race in which the Democrats presented an alternate slate of electors despite Mr. Nixon being certified as the winner of the state by 140 votes.

There was no accusation or finding of wrongdoing in that occurrence.

In that instance, the judge said that the Democrat alternate slate preserved the right for Mr. Kennedy’s electoral votes to eventually be counted.

After a court-ordered recount of the announced results which had initially declared Mr. Nixon the winner of the state’s popular vote and three electoral votes, it was found that Mr. Kennedy, not Mr. Nixon, had carried the state by 115 votes.

An Incredulous Accusation

The resolution ridiculed what it described as the “preposterous argument” that the Michigan Republican electors were actually intending to bamboozle Congress and the National Archives into believing that Mr. Trump had won the state, instead of just covering their legal bases in the event of further legal actions by Congress or the courts that might reverse the outcome.

The Ninth District Committee questioned Ms. Nessel’s judgment in bringing the prosecution herself against the electors when the U.S. Attorney had not acted on her referral of the case.

“We urge Republicans across Michigan to unite, put aside petty differences, and organize vigorously against this horrific miscarriage of justice.”

The committee’s resolution called Ms. Nessel a “rogue attorney general,” whom herself deserves to be investigated for destroying the rights of the citizenry.

In a statement released to the press on July 18, Ms. Nessel stated: “The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws.

“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents.”

Michigan criminal statutes require that, in order to prove guilt, a prosecutor must demonstrate that a defendant intended to injure and defraud someone.

Macomb County GOP Chairman Mark Forton told the meeting that Ms. Nessel knows the law and knows the 16 Republican electors were legally elected to the largely honorary position.

“She knows they could not change the outcome of the election and if that were to be done someone else would have to change it,” he said.

Not Guilty But Broke

Mr. Forton stated Ms. Nessel is responsible for a “travesty of justice.”

He said that he expects all 16 defendants to be “found innocent but be broken financially.”

“Who makes a person whole?” he asked.

Macomb County GOP Chairman Mark Forton hosts a press conference in Macomb County, Mich., on July 19, 2023. (Steven Kovac/Epoch Times)

When Mr. Forton was asked by a reporter what he had to say to people who agree with Ms. Nessel, he advised such persons to become familiar with the Constitution and the law.

“We are interested in what is true and what is right,” he said.

Eddie Kabacinski, a member of the Warren city council, said he is not afraid. The 17-year Army veteran, who served in the Persian Gulf and Somalia as a military policeman, said that he recognizes “election interference and voter intimidation” when he sees them.

“It’s clear to me that the government here in Michigan is trying to make people worry about what the secretary of state and attorney general might to do them,” said Mr. Kabacinski.

Political Weaponization of Law

Malinda Pego, co-chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party was at the press conference.

Ms. Pego told The Epoch Times, “All we want is accountability in government and for it to uphold our founding principles. If its abuses are tolerated or allowed to go unchecked, the power of government will be turned against us.

“We want to live without fear of the weaponization of our laws and the abuse of power.”

Macomb County resident Tom Mitchell believes Ms. Nessel is using the indictments and their five to 14-year prison terms to pressure the electors, whose average age is 69, to crumble and somehow turn state’s evidence against Mr. Trump.

“It’s malicious prosecution, overreach, and it is coercive,” said Mr. Mitchell.

A spokesperson for U.S. Representative Lisa McClain (R-Romeo) read a statement from the congresswoman, that said in part, “We have a two-tiered justice system in this country. From the federal level and now down to the state level, the radical Left has made it a criminal offense to be a Republican.

“This latest attack from our far-left AG Dana Nessel, who has continuously trampled on the rule of law, is political theater at its worst.”