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Michigan’s 2020 legitimate Democratic electors want to set the record straight
This week on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper reported on how Republican electors assembled on Dec. 14, 2020 to cast fake electoral votes for former President Donald Trump in seven states that President Biden had won.
The alleged scheme is a prominent part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president. Smith alleges that Trump and his co-conspirators developed what he calls a “corrupt plan” across those seven states to stop “Biden electors” votes from being counted and certified” on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to Smith, one of those states was Michigan, where President Biden won the popular vote by more than 154,000 votes.
Cooper spoke with Blake Mazurek, Robin Smith and Tim Smith, three of the legitimate Democratic electors.
When they went to the state capitol to cast Michigan’s electoral vote on Dec. 14, 2020, they were accompanied by police amidst what officials were calling a credible threat of violence.
“They actually had snipers on top of the building to make sure we got in and were able to complete the process,” Smith said.
That same day, Republicans allegedly signed fraudulent electoral documents. Some tried to get into the state capitol, claiming they were legitimate electors.
Fifteen Republicans are now facing charges brought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for their role in the alleged scheme.
One of them is Meshawn Maddock, who later co-chaired the Michigan Republican Party. On a radio show two days after the electoral vote was cast, Maddock said, “I along with the other 15 electors were guided by” attorneys for then-president Trump.
Last December, investigators in Attorney General Nessel’s office spoke with an alleged architect of the fake electors scheme, Kenneth Chesebro. He told them that he spoke with Trump about the fake electors on Dec. 16, 2020.
“I explained the whole logic…because the alternate electors had voted, we had more time to win litigation,” Chesebro told investigators.
Prosecutors in Georgia and Nevada are also pursuing criminal charges against some of the alleged fake electors in their states.
In Wisconsin, fake electors have not been criminally charged, but they were sued by some of the Democratic electors. As part of a settlement, the 10 fake electors admitted that they signed a document which was “used as part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.”
The former Wisconsin Republican Party chair Andrew Hitt, who was one of those fake electors, told 60 Minutes that he and the other fake electors were tricked by the Trump campaign.
Robin Smith, Blake Mazurek and Tim Smith have also filed a lawsuit against the fake electors in Michigan.
“This is about accountability and establishing that this is not OK,” Mazurek said. “This is not how a democratic system should work.”
Photos and video courtesy of Brendan Gutenschwager, USA Today Network, Associated Press & Getty Images.
The video above was produced and edited by Will Croxton. Georgia Rosenberg was the broadcast associate.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
