In a court filing, the elector nominees said they invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and they derided the change of their status as a “publicity stunt.”
Eleven of the 16 Republicans who falsely signed certificates claiming to be Georgia’s valid presidential electors say they’ve been deemed criminal “targets” by the Fulton County district attorney, who is investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
In a court filing seeking to be excused from testifying to the Fulton County grand jury, the elector nominees say they invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on the advice of their attorneys, and they derided the change of their status as a “publicity stunt.”
The Republicans contended that they acted lawfully, casting “contingent” electoral votes in the event that a court ruling deemed them the legitimate electors for Georgia. They cited, as precedent, actions by Democratic electors in Hawaii after the 1960 election, who similarly cast contingent votes that were later counted after a recount showed John Kennedy had narrowly won the state.
Most significantly, however, the Republican elector nominees say they had no awareness of a deeper scheme by close Trump allies — including attorneys John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani — to “misuse” their votes and pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to count the “contingent” electors as valid, even without a court ruling overturning the results.
“[T]he nominee electors did not and could not have had any involvement in or knowledge of any such plan, as it was not even conceived until several weeks after the GOP electors had completed their contingent electoral slates on December 14, 2020,” attorneys for the Republican elector nominees wrote, “and, in any event, it was never disclosed to or discussed with the nominee electors at any time.”
“As such, none of the nominee electors could have anticipated on December 14, 2020 that there could or would be any attempt to misuse their lawfully cast contingent electoral slate in such manner, nor did they or could they have participated in the same,” wrote the attorneys, Holly Pierson and Kimberly Debrow.
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11 false Georgia electors say they’ve been deemed criminal “targets” of the Fulton County investigation into efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results.https://t.co/6uPVmkbYfY
— POLITICO (@politico) July 19, 2022
JUST IN: Eleven of the false electors in Georgia say they've been told they're now "targets" of the grand jury investigation in Fulton County. https://t.co/ZbzbUNLQwz pic.twitter.com/3TLHjrPkGg
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 19, 2022
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