Posted on 06/21/2024 1:10:31 PM PDT by Red Badger
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada state court judge dismissed a criminal indictment Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump Get info without leaving the page.
the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election, potentially killing the case with a ruling that state prosecutors chose the wrong venue to file the case.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stood in a Las Vegas courtroom a moment after Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus delivered her ruling, declaring that he would take the case directly to the state Supreme Court.
“The judge got it wrong and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford told reporters afterward. He declined any additional comment.
Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that to bring the case now to another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada's capital city of Carson City would violate a three-year statute of limitations on filing charges that expired in December.
“They’re done,” said Margaret McLetchie, attorney for Clark County Republican party chairman Jesse Law, one of the defendants in the case.
The judge called off trial, which had been scheduled for next January, for defendants that included state GOP chairman Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was charged with offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, felonies that carry penalties of up to four or five years in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
politico.com
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excerpt——Until now, it’s been unclear whether the 1960 case of the Kennedy electors was truly analogous to 2020 Trump electors. But the unofficial Democratic certificates, obtained by POLITICO from the non-digitized files of the National Archives, show the three Kennedy electors signed documents that are remarkably similar to the false Trump-elector certificates.
The certificates describe the three Democrats as the “duly and legally appointed and qualified” members of the Electoral College. The envelope containing the certificates, stamped Dec. 22, 1960, includes another avowal: “We hereby certify that the lists of all the votes of the state of Hawaii given for president … are contained herein.” The documents do not mention the ongoing recount or that Nixon’s Hawaii victory had been certified.
Instead, the Hawaii Democrats used virtually the same language that the false Trump electors in five states used in their effort to upend the 2020 race. In those documents — from Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia — the pro-Turmp activists described themselves as “duly elected and qualified.” In two other states, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, Trump allies submitted alternative elector slates but included a caveat: their votes would only be counted if ongoing court battles broke in favor of Trump.
Charlie Gerow, a veteran Pennsylvania Republican strategist who signed one of the pro-Trump elector certificates, said he and several other electors who were lawyers devised the strategy to include a caveat.
“We put in the contingent language quite bluntly because I and several others in the room who were lawyers insisted upon it,” said Gerow, who is currently running for governor. “We inserted that language specifically to avoid some of the charges that are coming from the left.”
Gerow said the Trump allies met at the offices of his firm, Quantum Communications, to sign the Pennsylvania certificates. At that time, several of Trump’s long shot court challenges were still pending, he noted, and the Trump electors in those states wanted to be ready in the off-chance a court handed Trump a win.
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Do I need to guess? Probably not.
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