Levels, it tends to hurt the person, who is sort of more guilty in terms of proof. The psychology of that is fantastic. Now i wanted to ask you, now that youve had a little bit of a chance to chew on this. If you feel like if there is anything particularly problematic controversial, or anything that feels like an overreach in his indictment that might be vulnerable, in terms of people challenging the prosecution . No, right now it looks strong and we focused on the statement at the Press Conference about 19 defendants being tried together and i think that is controversial. And i dont think will happen but that is under the indictment itself. Really the issue is that there were 19 defendants. And the thing about 19 defendants is that there is a lot of opportunities for cooperation. And weve already talked about. Rudy giuliani being somebody who might flip. Indeed, the whole doctrine and the conspiracy doctrine is written to encourage people to flip. And when rico was enacted. 50 years a
and let s be clear, in michigan, the attorney general has stood up and taken action, david nestle and everyone had brought 16 electors and charge them. but this is very important, because often times we talked about the threats to democracy and donald trump trying to overturn or steal the 2020 election, it seems very far off. but this is very real for the people in georgia and republicans in georgia are going to have to make a decision and lastly i will note i talked to them on my show and i asked him, how is this playing with folks in georgia because the people i was talking to, republicans are split get and he said that is correct. about what would happen, if the same level of case was brought into arizona, republicans in arizona would have to pick a side. republicans are split. i want to ask about one specific republican, you know y whom well, david jolly, what is
at this point, but being barred from running elections is a pretty significant consequence. what are the ramifications do you think we could see for these 16 fake electors? well, as the attorney general has said, both the investigation is ongoing and i think the ramifications are still ongoing. i ve been saying repeatedly, we need to see not just legal consequences for the actions that were taken to try to overturn a legitimate presidential election in 2020, the political consequences as well. we have to make sure that current republican parties in michigan are run by someone who is also actively part of the effort in 2020. so we need voters on both sides of the aisle to reject these efforts to overturn election results, simply because someone doesn t agree with them. instead of at least in the case of one political party, supporting and amplifying those who spread lies about our elections in order to achieve political gain. are you at all surprised at the doj has not moved on this
but on that very same day, 16 other officials, republicans who would eventually be known as the fake steak electors, allegedly meet in the basement of the gop headquarters and signed their names to multiple certificates declaring trump the winner of michigan s electoral votes. now those documents are then sent to the u.s. senate, and the national archives. of course, trump and his allies continue to spew lies about election fraud in the following weeks, which helped fuel the january 6th insurrection. and one day before the insurrection on january the 5th, the national archives rejects the fake certificates they received from michigan. and in the aftermath of the capitol riot, attention is on the fake electors and the plot seems to die down. but in fact we later learned that attorney general david nestle has been investigating the electors, and their scheme
potential charges against additional defendants. trial dates have not even been such, so this timeline isn t finished. joining me now is michigan secretary of state joscelyn benson, madam secretary, it s great to have you back on the show. thank you so much for making time for us. let s start with this significant news. your office has been working in part with the attorney general and her office over the years, in 2021 you partnered with her office on investigating claims of election fraud and for someone who has worked closely with her, what is your reaction to the charges that have been filed this week? first, thanks for having me back. i was gratified to learn of the felony charges against these 16 individuals, who action oblique tried to interfere with the results of a legitimate presidential election in michigan, and may be planning to do so again in the future. we don t know. if they don t like future results. and so the attorney general and