'Open-and-shut': Law professor says Michigan fake Trump electors have no defense

ALSO READ: Mike Johnson battered in Dem victory speech as key GOP bill crashes in House

'Open-and-shut': Law professor says Michigan fake Trump electors have no defense
Donald Trump (Photo by Nicholas Kamm for AFP)

The 16 fake Trump electors who tried to convene in Michigan got a big surprise this week: felony indictments brought by the state attorney general.

And it's going to be almost impossible for them to defend against the case, argued New York University law professor and former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman on CNN Tuesday evening, for one key reason: the documents they are accused of forging contain a glaring lie.

"If you're going to charge 16 people there and hundreds of people, you're charging a lot of people with a lot of stuff," said anchor Erin Burnett. "It'd be kind of odd to not charge one person out of all of this. Some of the evidence in Michigan that the attorney general points to is language on the fake elector slate that was submitted to Congress. So they submit this to Congress. And in that you saw something very important. It said, 'we convened and organized in the State Capitol.'"

"So if you're an elector, you're going to convene there," said Burnett. "They said that's what they did. But they actually met at the Republican state headquarters, according to the January 6th Committee report, which I guess is not in the State Capitol, the pro-Trump attorney flagged this as slightly problematic in a memo to the Trump campaign. Now, anyone watching may say this seems like a detail. It is a detail, but a detail you think matters."

"It's a detail that matters," agreed Goodman. "It mattered to the Trump campaign lawyer, and he said this is a problem. He is mapping out the secret memo how they can do these false electors across the seven states. Michigan may have a problem because it's a legal requirement that you have to convene in the State Capitol. That's why they obviously put it in their declaration that we are convened in the State Capitol. And it is just a falsehood."

That's significant, Goodman added, because, "They can say, oh, we thought Trump won the election and that's why we did this. Did you think you were in the Capitol? You are not in the Capitol, you were in the basement of the GOP headquarters in Lansing. That's where you were when you convened. It's a false statement that they submitted to state and federal authorities that is almost an open-and-shut forgery."

Watch below or click the link here.

Ryan Goodman says Michigan fake electors case is "open-and-shut" www.youtube.com

For customer support contact support@rawstory.com. Report typos and corrections to corrections@rawstory.com.

Trump loyalists beware — this death sends a perilous message​

Dying doesn’t automatically erase a person’s track record, no matter the circumstances. But you can tell how little the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) truly meant to Donald Trump simply (stressing that “simp” part) based on the “eulogy” the president posted on Truth Social.

Truth Social

Not only did he make Graham’s death all about himself, but he also used a photo that identified him as the “Acting President of Venezuela,” because Trump has to make literally everything about himself — even someone else’s death.

Trump also didn’t waste any time making sure Lindsey’s Senate seat didn’t remain empty for long, especially with his favorite pet, Todd Blanche, being grilled like a cheap Trumpsteak by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump’s co-conspirators and paid shills sent out flowery messages of MAGA propaganda that praise Graham for *checks notes* never speaking out against the Dear Leader.

MAGA is also fine with Trump’s fellow war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, not only praising Graham, but returning to the United States to attend Graham’s funeral.

Poor Lindsey’s body was still warm when Republican South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Graham’s younger sister, Darline, who has precisely zero years of government experience, to serve in that seat until the midterm elections.

Why no, that’s not normal in any way, but when was the last time our lives felt anything like normal? Trump went from zero to president, so why not zero to senator? He needs that vote to secure Blanche as Attorney General, but since Republicans are actually breaking ranks, her vote may not even matter.

Graham’s death has nearly fallen out of the news cycle, replaced by Mitch McConnell’s not-at-all proof-of-life photo op and Trump’s Biggest Lie Ever speech on Thursday night. But the initial response to his sudden demise and an “investigation” by the FBI as a response has set off the online conspiracy theorists, which is just par for the (golf) course when it comes to the way death is handled on social media.

Nobody can just die of natural causes anymore. Graham was said to have been complaining about not feeling well on Saturday night. But he didn’t want to miss his chance to praise Netanyahu yet again on Meet the Press Sunday morning, so he reportedly told staffers he would get medical attention after the interview.

“I can’t die now,” Graham is said to have joked. “I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization.”

The Trump regime’s version of “normalization” is pretty far from normal, but few were willing to point that out when talking about Graham’s death.

Still, there are tactful ways to talk about someone reprehensible that you had to work with, for example, as former President Joe Biden did.

Leave it to Joe Cool to always set the standard for keeping it classy. A lot of Democrats did a lot of tightrope walking with this one, calling Graham “their friend” that they “often disagreed” with. Nobody with proximity to power wants to lose that proximity, as Charlotte Clymer sharply pointed out on Facebook on Wednesday.

As for me, I shared the same three screenshots of Graham that have been living on my phone for as long as Lindsey has been compromised.

There was a time when Lindsey Graham told the truth about Trump, but then he got an invitation to play golf that he definitely should’ve turned down, because he sealed his legacy on a putting green.

The official cause of death was “Myocardial infarction related to heart disease,” and self-recrimination for 10 years is hell on the ticker. Self-hate sure does rot you from the inside out.

I’m not sorry for any of the energy I spent criticizing everything about Lindsey “Friend of Israel” Graham, from his hawkish tactics to always voting against the LGBTQ community. Anyone who tweeted anything less than a glowing post about “Leningrad” Lindsey Graham got the full clutched-pearl version of MAGA, who took projection language to another level whenever they talked about the way we were talking about him.

It’s ridiculous for them to keep pushing multiple false narratives at once, because they can’t keep up, but the notion that death makes someone a saint really doesn’t work when their Dear Leader sets this kind of an example.

Telling the truth about our elected officials, both living and no longer living, will remain an act of resistance until Democrats are back in power, especially when the GOP refuses to ever acknowledge the truth about Graham, Trump, the Epstein Files, or anything else.

THANKS FOR SUBSCRIBING! ALL ADS REMOVED!

Trump delivers first public post since troop deaths — with sanctions talk: 'Important!'

President Donald Trump published his first post on Truth Social Sunday since the killing of at least two U.S. service members in Jordan, but rather than addressing the fallen soldiers, he issued a call for GOP lawmakers to amend a sanctions bill.

“Republicans should add Iran to the Russian Sanctions Bill,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “That’s what Lindsey [Graham] wanted to do, and it was going to happen. IMPORTANT!!!”

Trump’s statement comes amid a flare-up of violence in the Middle East, with the United States and Iran exchanging fire over the past week.

On Friday, at least two U.S. service members were killed at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan from Iranian strikes, which were launched in response to U.S. strikes targeting Iran’s southern coast. U.S. Central Command announced the deaths of the two U.S. service members on Saturday, also announcing that a third U.S. service member was missing.

Notably, Trump had issued no formal public statement on the deaths, though he did respond to questions Saturday from NewsNation's Hannah Brandt, who reached him by phone, and called the soldiers' deaths "a very sad thing."

The Atlantic columnist Tom Nichols expressed outrage at this wording — and demanded a detailed explanation from Trump.

"Two more deaths are not, as Trump calls them, merely a 'very sad thing,'" Nichols wrote.

"Before one more member of the U.S. military is killed, he should return to the airwaves—and stand before Congress—to explain what he’s doing in Iran and how many more lives he’s willing to risk."

'If only Trump were sane and decent': President outrages with response to soldiers' deaths

President Donald Trump's brief response to the death of two service members in the Iran conflict has spurred outraged calls that he stand before Congress and explain himself.

Frustration mounted after news broke Saturday that two service members had been killed by direct Iranian fire and, as tensions mounted, the president was playing golf.

On Sunday, former White House correspondent John Harwood took to X on Sunday to share with his 500,000 followers an Atlantic editorial from staff writer Tom Nichols.

"Nichols asks Trump to do what a sane, decent president would do," wrote Harwood, "explain clearly and sensibly why he continues to send US troops into harm's way against Iran. [I]f only Trump were sane and decent."

Nichol's editorial goes further in condemning both the war and Trump's passing comment to a right-wing NewsNation reporter that the deaths were "very sad."

"Trump does not seem to comprehend that Iran has a higher pain tolerance than America," wrote Nichols. "Two more deaths are not, as Trump calls them, merely a “very sad thing.”

In his editorial, Nichols argued the 16 young Americans who lost their lives in the war deserved a better from Trump. Specifically, the writer called for a better explanation of why their lives were sacrificed.

"The Iranian mullahs are among the world’s worst tyrants, and Trump could have made the case for ridding the planet of their rule over a nation of more than 90 million people," Nichols wrote.

"But the president has not seen fit, in all this time, to give one address to the American people or to Congress about why he plunged the United States into war, the global economy into chaos, and young Americans into danger."

Nichols predicted Trump will escalate the war before he gives a thorough, detailed explanation to the American public, then made a final demand.

"Before one more member of the U.S. military is killed," wrote Nichols, "he should return to the airwaves—and stand before Congress—to explain what he’s doing in Iran and how many more lives he’s willing to risk."

Copyright © 2026 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs RS+
For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com , for support contact support@rawstory.com .

{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}