MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin plays a key role in the prosecution against former President Trump, according to Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment.
The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that a plan to use false electors to certify Trump as president in 2020 "capitalized" on ideas from a co-conspirator who was helping Trump's campaign with recount efforts in Wisconsin.
The indictment names Wisconsin and six other states where alleged false electors signed fraudulent electoral votes as part of Trump and conspirators' plans to certify him as president.
Ten Republicans in Wisconsin acted as electors for Trump after the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Biden's election victory in the state.
"I wouldn't sleep well at night if I was one of these fake electors. There's a lot of time during which they could be charged," said Wisconsin Attorney Lester Pines.
Pines said the Dane County District Attorney or Wisconsin Attorney General could criminally charge the Wisconsin Republicans for falsely assuming to act as a public officer for false swearing. They're felony counts, said Pines, with a statute of limitations of six years in Wisconsin.
"If I was in either of those positions I would've charged those people a long time ago. There were two felonies that I believe were committed in plain sight," said Pines.
Last month, Michigan filed criminal charges against sixteen people, accusing them of falsely acting as electors in 2020.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has not yet indicated whether he'll pursue charges.
UW-Madison Political Science Professor Ryan Owens said the federal case is weak, as well as any criminal case that could come in Wisconsin.
"I think that would be an egregious overreach," said Owens. "The federal indictment of President Trump seems to indicate that there was no knowing violation of the law [in Wisconsin]."
The indictment does suggest some of the Wisconsin Republicans may have had no idea their votes would be part of a conspiracy, and that those votes would only be used in the event the election results in Wisconsin were overturned.
"What I'm seeing here among these prosecutions in Michigan, at the federal level, hopefully not in Wisconsin, is a conflation of the political with the legal. An attempt to try to criminalize political behavior," said Owens. "Where does this go next time around? Are we going to have a state or national department of justice checking on elections every single time around. The downstream consequences of this would be tremendously bad for our body politic."
Wisconsin Elections Commission Appointee Robert Spindell is one of the Republican Electors. He told TMJ4 News he has no comment.
We reached out to other electors as well but have yet to hear back.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin issued this statement on Wednesday:
"As the Wisconsin electors have consistently said, all action taken to produce an alternate slate was only done to preserve an ongoing legal strategy and only to be used in the event a court of law gave the alternate slate meaning. We were not informed of any use of the alternate electors contrary to preserving the legal strategy and would not have approved any other use. Yesterday’s Trump indictment does not allege that the Wisconsin electors took any steps whatsoever to knowingly join a conspiracy." — RPW Executive Director Mark Jefferson
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