The Michigan fake electors signed documents mis-representing basic facts, like where and when the fake elector documents were signed. Their main defense was that they were pressured and lied to by close Trump aids. Wonder what their defense will be this time.
It makes no difference to the result to have asserted it--electors are trivially replaceable--and so it gives a comparably clean case to fight about 14AS3-appliciability in a case that's divorced from the conversation about the actual votes themselves or disqualifying candidates
I think it was @andycraig.bsky.social pointed out that electors weren’t on the 14AS3 list of oath takers disqualified, even though those disqualified are disqualified from *being* electors.
I'd be really curious to see somebody do that breakdown, because it is necessary as a threshold matter to even argue they're disqualified.
Guesstimate what sort of people end up being electors, it's probably a majority, but also a good chunk who've only held party roles and taken no covered oath.
At minimum Michael McDonald (one of the 2020 and 2024 Nevada electors) is a former police officer and served in the office of Nevada State Treasurer, both of which I think get you there as state executive branch officials
there are at least two elected officials in my state who are J6 insurrectionists who never suffered any consequences (and indeed one of them just got re-elected this year with 82% of the vote)
Definitely, that's a covered oath. Whether it gets you to insurrection or rebellion just for the fake elector part is a trickier question than Trump himself and his much more direct role in the attack on the Capitol. I think you can get there, mostly on rebellion, but it's reasonably arguable.
Do it by press release, rather than by prosecution. "The named individuals below are not eligible for state or federal office on the basis of 14th Amendment disqualification, in the view of the Department of Justice"
I suppose they could, in the same way anybody could. Though it'd be kind of incongruous with not charging any of them with a federal crime. Which they easily all could have been, the false statements they made were to the federal government, whether that gets you to 14AS3 DQ or not.
On disqualified electors, it's one of those unfortunate things where there really isn't any federal mechanism to do anything about it, no DOJ cause of action or possible litigation, if the states don't do anything to reject them as elector candidates, except for Congress to reject them on Jan 6.
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or perhaps this is just laziness?
Guesstimate what sort of people end up being electors, it's probably a majority, but also a good chunk who've only held party roles and taken no covered oath.
Hear me out…
Biden takes his SC-granted immunity and detains every one of these insurrectionists on 11/6.
Just a thought.