GOP attorneys Troupis, Chesebro, reach settlements in Wisconsin false electors lawsuit

Two lawyers who orchestrated a scheme to send a false slate of presidential electors from Wisconsin after former President Donald Trump lost the state in 2020 have agreed to never do it again.

The settlements between attorneys Jim Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro and the liberal firm Law Forward now closes a lawsuit that resulted in 10 of Trump’s false electors admitting their actions were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.” 

The settlements marks the end of a lawsuit filed in 2022 alleging Wisconsin Republicans who posed as presidential electors in 2020 paved the way for the deadly Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol aimed at overturning President Joe Biden’s victory. 

Under terms signed by Troupis and Chesebro in late-February, the two agree to not participate in creating alternate slates of electors without being “certified as the persons elected as presidential electors under state law.” 

“In other words, if they’re going to work on electoral votes again, they have to be real electoral votes,” Law Forward Staff Counsel Scott Thompson told WPR.

Beyond that, Thompson said, both settlements also focused on transparency, forcing both Troupis and Chesbro to release previously private documents to the public.

“And this really goes to the heart of what this case has been about,” Thompson said. “Transparency and accountability.”

More than 1,400 pages of emails, texts released

More than 1,400 pages of emails and text messages between Troupis, Chesebro, Trump campaign officials and Wisconsin Republicans were released by Law Forward Monday.

Thompson said the disclosures provide Wisconsinites with a “more transparent understanding of exactly how a group of people tried to subvert or nearly subverted the will of the people here in Wisconsin.” 

The settlements signed by Troupis and Chesebro also specify that neither of the men are “admitting liability or culpability.” 

A statement from Troupis, who has long worked for Wisconsin Republicans in election law cases, said the settlement “was made to avoid endless litigation, and nothing in today’s settlement constitutes an admission of fault, nor should it.” 

Troupis’ statement also cited a Harvard Law School professor’s report as supporting the alternate-electors strategy as results of a state recount were being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Troupis also noted that three conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court found the Trump campaign’s arguments for tossing out more than 220,000 absentee ballots cast in Dane and Milwaukee counties “indeed had merit” in 2020. That case was rejected by the court’s three liberal justices and conservative swing-vote Justice Brian Hagedorn who found the Trump campaign waited too long to file it’s challenge.

“We are glad the case is resolved,” Troupis said.