A Nevada grand jury on Wednesday indicted six fake electors as part of a probe into the 2020 presidential election and included on the prosecution's witness list is a one-time attorney to former President Donald Trump who was the alleged architect of the elector scheme.
The so-called fake electors charged Wednesday include Nevada State Party GOP chair Michael McDonald and vice chair and national committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, both of whom have appeared before a criminal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Also charged were Durward James Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice.
“When the efforts to undermine faith in our democracy began after the 2020 election, I made it clear that I would do everything in my power to defend the institutions of our nation and our state,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement Wednesday. “We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged.”
An attorney for the six electors could not be reached for comment.
The Wednesday indictments include a disclosure of witnesses, and among those listed is Kenneth Chesebro, a one-time Trump attorney. Chesebro, also a codefendant with Trump in a sweeping Georgia case is reportedly cooperating with investigators, the Washington Post reported last week.
The alleged elector scheme worked across battleground states where a slate of pro-Trump electors signed documentation purporting that he won their states when really Joe Biden was the rightful winner.
The charges Wednesday include offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, charges that stem from sending a “certificate of the votes of the 2020 Electors from Nevada” to the President of the Senate; the Archivist of the United States; the Nevada Secretary of State and the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, according to the attorney general’s office.
