Longtime GOP attorney Jim Troupis and two associates made their initial appearance in Dane County Circuit Court Thursday on 11 felony charges stemming from their roles in the 2020 false electors plot, which was part of President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his losses in swing states like Wisconsin.
During a 13-minute hearing at Dane County Court Thursday morning, Troupis appeared alongside his attorney as Court Commissioner Mark Fremgen found there was probable cause to proceed with the criminal case brought by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul earlier this year.
Troupis, who served briefly as a Dane County judge, was silent during the hearing as Fremgen set a $500 signature bond and barred him from having any contact with 10 Wisconsin Republicans who signed a certificate claiming Trump won the 2020 presidential election, despite his narrow loss to President Joe Biden that year.
The other two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, who served as Trump’s attorney in 2020, and Mike Roman, a Trump campaign staffer that year, appeared remotely and agreed to the same terms.
All three men will have to report to the Dane County Jail to be fingerprinted and booked on the charges before a preliminary hearing scheduled for Jan. 28.
Stay informed on the latest news
Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.
A few dozen Troupis supporters were in attendance.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Troupis argued he was being targeted, saying Kaul “should be ashamed of himself” for pursuing a “political case.”
“My family and I have endured nonstop vicious and unrelenting savage attacks on my reputation, on my livelihood,” he said. “We had thought that this would end — the country asked for it to end in November, but lawfare, in all its despicable forms, will not end in Wisconsin.”
Troupis exited the courthouse without taking questions from reporters as his supporters applauded.
Wisconsin’s false elector criminal charges focus on forgery
One of the 11 charges dates back to June, when Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul accused Troupis, fellow 2020 Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro and 2020 campaign staffer Mike Roman of forging paperwork signed by 10 Wisconsin Republicans posing as presidential electors in December 2020. The Class H felony charge alleges the men intended to submit a “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Wisconsin” falsely claiming Trump had won the state.
At the time, Kaul told reporters Troupis, Chesebro and Roman were “part of a conspiracy” aiming to present the signatures on the certificate as valid electoral votes, when the only “duly appointed electors” were those who cast ballots for Biden, who defeated Trump by around 21,000 votes in Nov. 2020.
On Tuesday, Kaul filed 10 more felony charges against the trio, accusing them of defrauding those Republicans who posed as electors four years earlier. The amended complaint claims most of those who signed the certificate told investigators they didn’t think their signatures would be submitted to Congress to be certified on Jan. 6, 2021 unless a state or federal court ruled in favor of various Trump campaign lawsuits aimed at overturning Biden’s victory.
“In interviews with law enforcement, the majority of the Unappointed Electors stated that they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if they conveyed Wisconsin’s electoral votes without a court ruling to that effect,” read the complaint by the state DOJ.
Each of the 11 charges facing Troupis, Chesebro and Roman carries a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine and 6 months in jail.
Attorneys representing Troupis have filed four motions to dismiss the criminal charges against him, claiming Kaul has failed to show probable cause that any crimes were committed. He also claims the case can’t proceed because any election-related criminal charges have to be referred by the Wisconsin Elections Commission or local district attorney, not the attorney general.
In 2022 and 2023, the bipartisan elections commission rejected a complaint urging it to investigate the false electors’ actions and find that state law was broken.
Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to similar felony charge in Georgia
Chesebro, who authored memos explaining how Republicans could send false slates of electors to Congress in hopes of overturning Trump’s 2020 loss, has already been convicted on similar charges in Georgia.
On Oct. 20, 2023, he pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Chesebro agreed to testify in the case as part of a plea deal offered by Georgia prosecutors. He faces five years probation, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service under the agreement.
Troupis, Chesebro reach plea deal in related case
In March, Troupis and Chesebro agreed to never send false slates of electors again as part of a civil lawsuit settlement with the liberal firm Law Forward. While the settlement made clear neither of the men were admitting liability or culpability for their actions, they acknowledged their actions were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.”
In a statement, Troupis said the settlement was made to “avoid endless litigation.”
The 10 Wisconsin Republicans who posed as false electors reached a similar settlement with Law Forward in December 2023 and agreed to never serve as presidential electors in future elections featuring Trump and cooperate with investigations into the deadly Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
On Wednesday, Law Forward filed a grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, arguing that Troupis and Chesebro should be investigated and that Troupis should face discipline for “professional wrongdoing.”
The complaint alleges that Troupis lied over the course of Law Forward’s previous cases with him, undermined the Constitution in his alleged involvement with the false electors plot, and solicited Chesebro’s involvement.
“In seeking to nullify the results of a democratic election, through the solicitation and submission of certifications from fake electors, he failed to ‘support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin,’” the complaint reads, citing a state ethics code for lawyers. “Troupis’s conduct undermined faith in our democratic processes, contributed to a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, and reverberates to this day in ongoing election denialism in Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin is genesis of false elector plot
Court documents and records obtained through a civil suit settlement show Wisconsin was the genesis of the 2020 Trump campaign’s plan to submit competing slates of electoral ballots in hopes of reversing Trump’s defeat. Initially, Chesebro and Troupis approached the plan as a type of insurance so that Trump electors in Wisconsin and other swing states would still be certified by Congress if courts ruled in Trump’s favor.
That plan evolved when Chesebro later told Troupis the alternate slates of electors claiming Trump won should be submitted “even if there is no litigation pending on Jan. 6.” Three days after 10 Wisconsin Republicans posing as presidential electors cast their votes for Trump, Chesebro told Roman the Electoral Count Act “can be weaponized” if then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to certify valid electoral ballots from the seven contested states, including Wisconsin.
Pence didn’t act on pressure from Trump to do so, and in a text message to Troupis on Jan. 7, 2021, Chesebro blamed the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol the day before on Pence refusing to “press the envelope or create a test case” with regard to false electoral certificates from Wisconsin and other states.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2025, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
