Senate received Michigan false electoral certificate ahead of Jan. 6, official testifies
Lansing — A certificate that falsely claimed Donald Trump won Michigan’s 2020 presidential election made it to the U.S. Senate, but no lawmaker sought to have the document formally considered, a lawyer who worked for the secretary of the Senate testified in a state court Tuesday.
“You could tell on it … that it was not an actual or authorized certificate of votes. It is not an authorized certificate of votes. It was a fake,” said Dan Schwager, who was general counsel for the secretary of U.S. Senate in 2020.
Schwager took the stand on the third day of preliminary examinations for six of the 16 Michigan Republicans who signed the false certificate on Dec. 14, 2020. Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office is pursuing felony charges, including forgery, against the Republicans whose names appeared on the document, which was used by Trump’s campaign to challenge his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Through the exams, Ingham County District Judge Kristen Simmons will eventually decide whether there’s enough evidence for the cases to proceed to trial.
Schwager’s testimony was significant because it detailed how the false certificates from Michigan and six other states that voted for Biden were handled by the U.S. Senate ahead of the formal counting of electoral votes in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was previously known that a false certificate from Michigan was received by the National Archives, which flagged the record for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office.
While the certificates didn’t meet legal requirements, Schwager contended that they could have played a role in the count if a member of Congress or then-Vice President Mike Pence had requested them and attempted to cite them.
Michigan’s false certificate arrived at the U.S. Senate’s mail room on Jan. 5, 2021, Schwager testified.
Senate officials could have pushed to have the document brought to the secretary of the Senate for Jan. 6, 2021, if they wanted to, Schwager said. But they didn’t, he said.
“We work regularly with mail services and if we needed it … expedited … if a senator or a member of Congress or the vice president had asked for it we could have gotten it expedited from the mail room,” Schwager said.
“No one asked us for that,” Schwager said at another point.
Defense lawyers for the six false electors argued on Tuesday that the certificate had no legal significance because Biden’s victory in Michigan had already been certified. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, 51%-48%.
Schwager himself acknowledged the false certificates were not accepted or considered by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
On July 18, Nessel, Michigan’s top law enforcement official, announced eight felony charges against each of the 16 Republicans who signed the false certificate.
Since then, Nessel’s team has reached a cooperation deal with one of the Republicans, James Renner of Lansing.
The preliminary exams for other false electors are scheduled to begin on April 12.