Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford is investigating a group of state Republicans who in December 2020 attempted to derail President Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump with a fake elector scheme, a source close to the investigation told the Sun.
Politco reported that investigators have questioned witnesses and asked about documents prepared as part of the effort.
Led by Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, about a dozen Republicans met on Dec. 14, 2020, in Carson City and conducted a fake ceremony to certify electoral votes for Trump.
The Nevada Republican Party sent the document — titled “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Nevada” — to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., with McDonald’s name listed with the return address.
Republicans in a handful of states went through a similar process — all with the same misleading and potentially criminal logic.
The meeting of fake electors, here and in the other five contested states, had no legal standing.
Nevada’s real electors had already certified the state’s election that same day in a remote ceremony, awarding all six of Nevada’s electoral votes to Biden.
Ford told the Nevada Legislature in May that his office spent months investigating the scheme, but said he was unable to prosecute those who signed fake electoral certificates because no state law exists to make such an exercise illegal.
“In the 2020 election, we saw a concerted effort to undermine the results of our election and democratic processes,” Ford told lawmakers in May. “Trump did not win this election. And the fake electoral certificates were simply another propagandistic tool used to further this lie.”
Joe Gloria, the former Clark County registrar of voters, told Politco he was recently questioned by investigators. Another source, who requested anonymity, told Politico they provided documents to investigators.
The fake Nevada electors included: McDonald; James DeGraffenreid, a Republican national committeeman and a district-level delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention; Durward James Hindle III, vice chair of the Nevada Republican Committee; Jesse Law, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party; Shawn Meehan, founder of the Guard the Constitution Project; and Eileen Rice, a delegate at the Nevada Republican Party.
Alternate electors were Nye County Republican Central Committee Chairman Joe Burdzinski and failed Nevada Secretary of State candidate James Marchant, who has since announced a 2024 bid for U.S. Senate in Nevada.
Transcripts released in December from the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump extremists attempting to stop the certification of electoral votes for President Joe Biden’s general election victory detailed the involvement in Nevada.
Take a text from McDonald days after the election on Nov. 4, 2020.
“I have been on the phone this morning with the President, Eric Trump, Mark Meadows and Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani,” McDonald wrote in the message, which was released in transcripts. “There is a major plan. We are meeting at the hotel with attorneys and national staff in about 20 minutes.”
It’s unknown what charges or penalties Ford could pursue.
In Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, in July announced 16 fake electors would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The charges come with a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Electors in Georgia are also facing charges. An investigation is ongoing in Arizona.