Judge refuses call from Trump’s former Wisconsin lawyer to step away from fake elector case

• A Wisconsin judge has denied a request from former Trump attorney Jim Troupis to step down from his felony forgery case.
• Troupis, along with Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman, faces felony charges for his alleged role in the 2020 fake elector scheme.
• The charges stem from an alleged attempt to create and deliver false elector paperwork claiming Donald Trump won Wisconsin.

MADISON – A Wisconsin judge is refusing calls from President Donald Trump’s former campaign attorney to step down from a case accusing the attorney of felony forgery charges over his alleged role in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election result.

Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland on Tuesday rejected a motion from Jim Troupis, a former Dane County judge who represented Trump’s 2020 campaign in Wisconsin, to step down from the case. Troupis alleged judicial misconduct.

Hyland also rejected a motion to postpone a Monday hearing in the case, according to court records.

Troupis argued Hyland should step aside because Troupis believed retired Dane County Judge Frank Remington actually wrote a previous order in the case, according to the Associated Press. Troupis alleged that Remington had ill will against Troupis. Hyland said Remington did not help write the order and rejected the motion.

In 2024, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed felony charges against Troupis, Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and lead architect of the 2020 elector scheme, and former Trump aide Mike Roman, who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s slate of false elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.

The three face 11 charges relating to felony forgery and forgery meant to defraud the Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump, even though Joe Biden, a Democrat, won the state’s presidential election. Each of the 11 charges against the men carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine.

According to the complaint against Troupis, Chesebro and Roman, most of the Trump electors said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won the state without a court ruling saying so. The complaint also describes how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman allegedly created a fake document that said Trump won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver it to Pence for certification.

Federal prosecutors have said the fake electors plot originated in Wisconsin.

Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case.

Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.

At the same time, the Republican fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won.

They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and then-Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Chesebro was in the room during the meeting.

At the time, the fake electors said they held the meeting only to ensure the state’s electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state.

In efforts to have the case dismissed, Troupis claimed the electors met and cast their ballot only to preserve their legal options, in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Trump the winner of Wisconsin, arguing no crime was committed.

The 10 electors have not been criminally charged related to the fake documents. The group settled a lawsuit in 2023 filed by the real Biden electors against them over their role in the scheme. As a part of the settlement, the false electors acknowledged their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.