Republicans who signed certificates as alternate 2020 Georgia electors are claiming ignorance about broader plans to “misuse” their votes.
Lawyers for 11 of the 16 of these so-called fake electors argued they signed those certificates at a time when a “judicial contest” to the 2020 election results was still pending and that they were not privy to a scheme devised by Trump-linked lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani to count their votes improperly on Jan. 6, 2021, instead of the legal slate of electors across multiple battleground states.
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“As Vice President Pence and his team determined, such a plan is unprecedented and unlawful under both the Constitution and the provisions of the ECA,” the lawyers wrote.
“As such, none of the nominee electors could have anticipated on December 14, 2020, that there could or would be any attempt to misuse their lawfully cast contingent electoral slate in such manner, nor did they or could they have participated in the same,” the lawyers continued.
The assertion came in a court filing in which the electors sought to quash subpoenas from the Fulton County criminal investigation filed in the Fulton County Superior Court. Lawyers for the alternative electors said their clients invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and should be excused from testifying.
Those 11 alternative electors were notified in late June by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office that their status had been changed from “witness” to a “target” of her sprawling election inquiry, according to the filing, confirming prior reporting.
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“The unavoidable conclusion is that the nominee electors’ change of status was not precipitated by new evidence or an honestly-held belief that they have criminal exposure but instead an improper desire to force them to publicly invoke their rights as, at best, a publicity stunt,” the court filing said.
The 11 electors named on the filing were Mark Amick, Joseph Brannan, Brad Carver, Vikki Consiglio, John Downey, Carolyn Fish, Kay Godwin, Cathy Latham, David Shafer, Shawn Still, and CB Yadav.
During the fallout from the 2020 election, allies of former President Donald Trump encouraged state legislatures to put forth an alternative slate of electors while they challenged the election results in several states narrowly won by President Joe Biden. Efforts to challenge the results were roundly rejected in courts across the country.
Still, Trump’s allies used the existence of those alternate electors as part of their justification to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to stall the Jan. 6 certification and send electoral votes back to several battleground states where GOP-led legislatures could try to overturn the results over concerns of fraud and irregularities. Lawmakers, along with Pence, reconvened that night after the Capitol riot and certified Biden’s victory.
The scheme has attracted scrutiny from the House Jan. 6 committee and reportedly a criminal inquiry from the Justice Department.
Willis began her inquiry into whether crimes were committed in the 2020 Georgia election last year. A special grand jury to assist with her investigation and issue subpoenas was impaneled in May. So far, she has subpoenaed multiple allies of Trump and has left the door open to subpoenaing the former president himself and others associated.
Her investigation is reportedly examining a call Trump had with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, two calls Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had with Raffensperger, controversial claims Giuliani made about the election to the Georgia Senate, and the sudden resignation of a U.S. attorney in Georgia.
