'Selling out democracy': Trump reportedly accepting donations from indicted false electors

Individuals who acted as fake electors to help keep Donald Trump in office despite losing the 2020 election are still invested in getting him back into office.

Campaign finance records show many of those fake electors – including some who face criminal charges for the scheme – have donated thousands to Trump, J.D. Vance and other Republicans, and election watchdogs are concerned about their involvement in this election cycle, reported The Guardian.

“It is incredibly rare for politicians to accept campaign contributions from people under indictment,” said Michael Beckel, research director at the election watchdog group Issue One. “It’s generally not good optics for politicians to accept money from people accused of serious wrongdoing. Political candidates generally don’t want to be tied to convicted or accused felons. Yet in certain circles, association with the people who served as fake electors for Donald Trump in 2020 may be a badge of honor.”

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“Former President Trump likely has fewer qualms about accepting campaign cash from people under indictment for serving as fake electors in 2020 than the typical politician,” Beckel added.

Federal records show some of those donors include former Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock, who has given more than $1,800 to Trump and allied fundraising entities this cycle despite being charged with 15 others in the fake electors scheme, while Tyler Bowyer, who has pleaded not guilty to Arizona charges in a similar case, donated $645 this year to the former president.

David Hanna, a fake elector from Georgia who hasn't been criminally charged, has given at least $25,000 this year to Trump, according to campaign finance records, and he donated more than $6,000 combined in 2021 and 2023 to J.D. Vance’s U.S. Senate campaign.

“It doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are keeping extremist election-deniers in the fold as reliable henchmen and women to challenge the results of the fall election,” said Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century.

“They’ve taken thousands of dollars in donations from fake electors and welcomed them with open arms to the Republican national convention last month," added Weathersby, whose group notified The Guardian about the donations. "Trump and Vance are actively selling out our democracy in exchange for the power to enact their Project 2025 agenda the day they step into the White House.”

Fake electors have also given donations to Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM), and Michael McDonald, a fake elector who was criminally charged in Nevada, continues to serve as the state's GOP chair while the attorney general appeals a judge's decision to toss out that case.

Robert Spindell, an alleged fake elector from Wisconsin, serves as one of three Republicans on the state's bipartisan elections commission, and other purportedly false Trump electors Burt Jones and Shawn Still serve, respectively, as Georgia's lieutenant governor and a state senator.