Revealed: How Michigan's fake electors were ‘guided’ by Trump attorneys

“I’m an elector for Donald Trump from the Michigan Republican Party,” Meshawn Maddock said during a Dec. 16, 2020, interview on the right-wing, Lansing-based Steve Gruber Show. “I, along with the other 15 electors, were guided by legal minds – attorneys for our president, some very incredible constitutional attorneys – I’ve never in my whole life appreciated legal minds and attorneys before.”

Here’s what we know about the charges against the 2020 Michigan fake electors

“I can tell you that in the last few weeks, just some incredible minds,” continued Maddock. “And from what I understand, you know, you have the federal constitutional law, and then you have state statutes, and they’re two different things. So, what we did along with seven other states, really send in dueling electors, and that will be there before, you know, a federal constitutional attorney, and it’ll be before [former Vice President] Mike Pence and Congress to make that decision.”

CNN first reported the interview on Thursday, and the Advance found the interview in the Steve Gruber Show’s podcast archive. The Advance reviewed the audio, which matches what CNN reported.

Maddock did not respond to a request for comment. Her attorney, Nick Somberg, also did not respond to a request for comment.

CNN’s discovery of the December 2020 comments from Maddock come as the Michigan GOP’s former co-chair, who is married to state Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford), has recently insisted she remembers very little about the Trump attorneys with whom she and the other fake electors worked following the election and in the lead-up to Trump supporters’ attempted coup d’etat on Jan. 6, 2021. Maddock did not identify the Trump attorneys in her 2020 interview with Gruber.

Following the 2020 election, which President Joe Biden won in Michigan by 150,000 votes, Maddock and 15 other Republicans from the state, including Michigan GOP National Committeewoman Kathy Berden, were repeatedly promoting the lie that Trump won the election and had formed a slate of electors they planned to present to Pence in an effort to create a false controversy as to which electors to count.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, in July charged Maddock and 15 others with filing false election documents with the U.S. Senate and National Archives, including a document casting Michigan’s 16 electoral votes for Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Each of the 16 individuals is charged with eight felonies, most of which carry a maximum of up to 14 years in prison. They have all pleaded not guilty.

Just days before the Steve Gruber Show interview in 2020, the group of fake electors had attempted to gain access to the Michigan Capitol on Dec. 14 in an effort to cast electoral votes for Trump. They were barred from entering by the Michigan State Police. The state’s electoral votes were awarded to Biden.

Republicans in six other states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – also formed slates of fake electors, as spelled out in a federal grand jury’s indictment of Trump in August.

As right-wing disinformation about the 2020 election spread across the country, emanating in part from a protracted absentee ballot count in Michigan, more than 250 state and local audits confirmed Biden won in Michigan. Additionally, a Republican-led Michigan Senate report concluded there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

In interviews following the 2020 election, Maddock has shared varying information about the Trump campaign’s involvement with Michigan’s fake electors.

During a public event in January 2022, Maddock credited the Trump campaign with organizing the false elector scheme.

“We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that,” Maddock said, according to audio obtained by CNN.

More recently, Maddock has offered few details regarding the fake elector scheme.

In a July 2023 interview with Gruber on the right-wing Real America’s Voice, Maddock called details regarding the Trump attorneys pressing the group of 16 Michiganders to sign documents declaring Trump the winner of the 2020 election “vague.”

“A lot of that is still vague to me. And I don’t have any email communications with any of these people,” Maddock said in July when asked about the attorneys’ identities.

Maddock went on to say that the group of fake electors was asked following the 2020 election to gather at the Republican party headquarters by members of then-Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox’s staff.

“Laura Cox was our state party chair at the time; somebody from her staff contacted all of us, asked us to be at the Michigan Republican Party office at 2 p.m.,” Maddock told Gruber in July.

After being subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select congressional committee, which investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Cox told investigators in May 2022 that the Trump campaign had asked the party to coordinate a meeting of the electors to “sign some sort of document.”

“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion, as well,” Cox said. “We felt that that was something that was not appropriate.”

Cox has said she did not expect the 16 Republicans to sign false documents that declared Trump the winner in Michigan. She also previously labeled the group’s attempt to enter the state Capitol to submit electoral votes for Trump as “insane.”

Maddock is expected to next appear in court on Oct. 12.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.