New Charges in Electors Conspiracy Case

Robin talks with Forum regular Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, about the recent criminal complaint filing by AG Josh Kaul against three men regarding the alleged unappointed electors conspiracy in 2020.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning. I'm Robin Colbert andthis is Madison Forum. I guess this
morning is mister Charles Franklin. Heis the Marquette Law School poll director.
And it's something we have to talkabout now and again politics. Some of
us trying to avoid it like theplague as things are amping up, but
it's before you know it, Novemberwill be here. It's our bad year

(00:22):
for avoiding policy. If I don'tthink you're going to manage it else everywhere
you look, not just it's inthe courts now and just all all over
the place. But there were acouple of major happenings here over the past
couple of weeks. Of course,with the verdict and the hush money case
in New York City, Donald Trumpconvicted of thirty four felonies what class h

(00:45):
those are lesser felonies. And thenof course we have Attorney General Josh call
here in Wisconsin over this past weekannouncing felony charges against three former Trump advisors
and the fake electors from twenty twenty. Now, some other states, Charles,
as we're all well aware of,have already taken that action in the

(01:06):
fake electors scheme. Were you surprisedto see Wisconsin step forward. Because Josh
played his cards close to his vestfor a while, I wasn't so sure
he was gonna well, it wasn'tclear. The charges do come later than
several other states, the Georgia mostobviously, but Arizona and Nevada I believe

(01:29):
have also pursued charges. You know, investigations take long, a long time,
and they run on somewhat their ownschedule. But that said, it's
been three plus years since the eventssurrounding the elector's scheme in twenty twenty,
and the slow progress of the chargesin those or the delay in bringing them

(01:56):
here, but in other states aswell, I think does is interest about
why these things take so long.Again, having said that, we've seen
a number of charges filed against theformer president Trump and in the elector's schemes,
and those have generally been coming inthe last year a year and a
half, so we're not super lateby comparison, but we are later than

(02:23):
you might have expected if you werejust thinking about this four years ago.
Absolutely, and we are correct incalling this a fake elector scheme. I
will get complaints from some critics claimingthat it is totally showing a bias against
former President Trump. I tend todisagree because it's been spelled out in many

(02:46):
legal documents, but I think youneed to give your explanation. Well,
like so many things, calling itthe fake elector's scheme is a shorthand for
a complicated process. There was,the charges claim, a deliberate strategy to

(03:07):
pursue these electors submitting what the chargescall false documents, and that that was
aimed at preventing the election or inaugurationof Joe Biden. You could go through
all of that and try to parseall of the little details of it.

(03:28):
But colloquially, I think we knowthese cases around the country as fake electors
because these were electoral college votes castdespite the states not having voted for the
person they were casting the votes for, and included submission of those documents to

(03:51):
all of the usual authorities for countingof the electoral votes. So you know,
if you don't want to call thatfake elector, I'll be happy for
you to come up with a betterfrance for it. But I think that
that is sort of embedded in thelanguage now to think of these as electoral
votes cast that were not in accordancewith the laws of how electoral votes are

(04:15):
cast and counted. The counter argumentthat Republicans have made all along is that
these were votes cast to protect theelectoral college vote if ports ruled against the
Democratic electors, and they do pointto a case in nineteen sixty in Hawaii

(04:41):
where Hawaii had two slates of electorspending to recount. Once that recount was
done, then the appropriate electors casttheir votes. But it was a historical
example that attorneys on Trump's side arguedjustified the submission of these electrical college votes.

(05:02):
Now, they did not win thecourt battles that would have legitimized those
and therefore the submission of them afterhaving lost in the Wisconsin Supreme Court and
federal courts here in the state.That is where I think you clearly go

(05:23):
beyond simply protecting the potential to castthose votes to actually submitting them to the
Senate, submitting them to attempting tosubmit them depends and to other authorities,
including the Secretary of State here inthe state. Yeah, and also with

(05:46):
the ten facal electors involved in acivil litigation, and last year came to
a settlement in that case. AndI do believe as far as the documents,
and what I have read is thatthey acknowledged that, yes, our
actions were all parts of an attemptto overturn the selection. Yeah. That

(06:08):
civil suit also resulted in the releaseof emails and text messages which further clarified
what the discussion was behind the scenesand is at least part of the charges
being brought against these three individuals.And we still could see more because I

(06:30):
know a lot of questions when mistercall me, the Attorney General made the
announcement with these three kind of chessbroJim Troopis and Mike Roman what chessbrow and
Troopis attorneys here? And yes,and mister Roman an advisor, a former
advisor. Well wait, there wereten fake electors and there you know,
and there's of course others that areindirectly involved in that sort of thing.

(06:54):
But we didn't see a Giuliani norTrump. Right, No, that's right.
Did not reach beyond just what happenedhere in the statement. In contrast
to the Georgia case, where itis all encompassing. I think the three
who were charged are alleged to havebeen involved in the planning of this scheme

(07:15):
and the conduct of the scheme.The ten electors who signed the false electoral
statement of at least so far inthis investigation, weren't or not being charged
as part of the scheme about whyto do that. They weren't the architect

(07:38):
that's right, not the architects,that's the good term. Yeah. Well,
and also I think it's important topoint out as well, Charles talking
with Charles Franklin, he is thepoll director Marquette Law School Pool. You've
been with Marquette for how many years? A dozen years, dozen years?
Have you? But the Wisconsin SupremeCourt, it was close, but they

(08:00):
had a five to four ruling thatupheld the results here in Wisconsin. And
that's key because after that vote,wasn't it like that night or what were
the activities then of this this electorscheme. Yeah, it was four to
three, but I always say fiveto four to two, but four to
three on our court, and itwas a very close decision there. I

(08:22):
think part of the argument that Paulis making is that the scheme continued after
that state Supreme Court ruling went againstthem, and so again the case being
brought to the Supreme Court. I'mnot aware of any arguments that that was
illegitimate, but that this scheme forthe electoral votes continued after the judicial process

(08:48):
had ended and after they had lostthose decisions. Well, I guess critics
could say, well, just becausewe lost at the state supreme court level
doesn't mean that we couldn't have,even though they that they were rejected in
so many courts. But still,as we're seeing it play out day in
day out with the court process things, people are convicted, it's overturned,

(09:11):
or they put it on appeal,or I mean, this could go on,
it could never end. And therewas when do you get to that's
it, it's done, let's moveon, And there was an eventual appeal
or filing with US Supreme Court.The Supreme Court quickly rejected that. I
think what we have and what thecase will include, is the argument about

(09:33):
when legitimate political efforts to win anelection cross over into illegitimate efforts, such
as in this case, the chargeof filing false records, false government records
pretending to be government records, Andwhen do you cross that line between a

(09:56):
bare nockl legal brawl over the electionto actually engaging in illegal fault documents or
other kinds of fraudulent action, andyou know, well, once again see
courts and aps juries decide those questionswell. And then the fake elector's scheme
of twenty twenty here it seems becauseit sure looked like covert operations to me

(10:22):
when you had the ten fake electorssigning on to this. And they will
say, we'll Democrats again with thealternate slate of electors in Alaska. But
that was done out and open,and that was signed off. They had
a Republican governor and not you know, across parties and this no nobody was
I mean, this was really itwas done in secret. This this is

(10:45):
a somewhat different affair, you know, compared to the nineteen sixty case.
And is that the only other becauseyou'll hear how you know, stories get
told. It starts with one andbefore you know it, I'm hearing now
critics will say do it all thetime. I'm like, yeah, I
don't think it's been done before lastI'm sorry. Point nineteen sixty is the

(11:05):
one case I'm aware of. ButI will be the first to admit I'm
not an expert in the law ofelections or the history of this, but
it's certainly not a common thing.We've had disputed elections. Think of Florida
in two thousand, Chad with thehanging chads and the five hundred and something

(11:26):
odd vote different margin in the end, and the US Supreme Court stepping in
to settle that case. But Idon't recall that there was any effort to
appoint an alternate late of electors inFlorida in two thousand. Yeah, and
these three each charged with one felony. Again, these are kind of a

(11:48):
lower level felonies. And so Iguess do you think the charging in Wisconsin's
of Wisconsin's fick elector's case. Isthat going to impact the state electorate as
far as pulling goes. I knowlater this month you'll release your next survey
that will follow up how people areactually thinking following these court decisions. I

(12:11):
think there is so many other thingsgoing on in this election year that this
probably won't be a central issue.I believe the first court appearance is scheduled
for September, and so that'll bewell into the general election period. You
know, there is still plenty ofcontroversy swirling around the twenty twenty election.

(12:35):
We have about two thirds of thestate that say the twenty twenty election was
decided barely and accurately, but abouttwo thirds of Republicans say it was not
decided accurately, and so there's adeep partisan divide here on the issue and
lots of people with still serious complaintsor concerns about how twenty twenty was conducted.

(13:01):
That's driven by Donald Trump's continued insistence, even at his Green Bay rally
recently in which he said he wonthe state. And so as long as
your elected officials are continuing to pressthe issue that Donald Trump somehow actually did
win Wisconsin in twenty twenty, andyou have two out of three Republican followers

(13:28):
accepting that argument, then I don'tsee this issue fading into the background.
Whether this particular case, and wedon't have any idea when it might go
to trial, even if it beginsproceedings since September, I don't think that
will be the premier element on voters'minds in November. But even if that
case weren't brought, Trump's continued discussionarguments complaints about twenty twenty keep what happened

(13:58):
in twenty twenty at the forefront ofthe election, regardless of what role these
electors or these people behind the elector'sscheme played in it well, and pollsters
like yourself, and I mean justjust regular voters, American citizens like myself,
just really nervous and worried about isthis is twenty four going to be

(14:22):
accepted? Whichever you know? Andit could go either way. All of
our polling and everybody else's polling showsthe state is extremely close again this year.
So I think you have to askyourself, if your candidate loses,
regardless of which side you're on,how prepared are you to accept that result?

(14:46):
I think sort of the worst casewould be that the losing side no
longer accepts elections as legitimate, andwe've got a taste of that, and
we could see that that would bea further exacerbation of a trend that we've
seen for a long time that therewas unhappiness in democratics circles. About two

(15:09):
thousand and Al Gore losing that race. Gore came out and gave a gracious
concession speech, saying that we haveto accept these results and move on.
When Hillary Clinton lost in twenty sixteen, there was more vociferous objections to it,
and in some state races we sawlosing candidates on the Democratic side argued

(15:31):
that they weren't legitimately the losers.So the Trump lost in twenty twenty and
all of the rhetoric keys surrounded himselfwith on that is not coming out of
thin air. It's coming out ofmore than twenty years of growing willingness of
politicians to deny the legitimacy of outcomeswhen they're on the short end of the

(15:56):
stick. As opposed. To useal Gore again as the example, fought
hard not to lose that race,fought hard for the recounts in Florida,
but once lost, he gave aunifying speech and accepted that verdict. But

(16:17):
we've seen subsequent candidates becoming increasingly unwillingto do that, and including into twenty
twenty two when losing candidates in Arizonaand other places denied that they had actually
lost. So I think this underminingof legitimacy is a big dilemma for democracy.

(16:37):
And I think if Democrats were tolose here in November and deny the
legitimacy of the loss, we wouldhave come full circle where neither party is
willing to accept the votes of thepublic. Yeah, where do you go?
From there, and is this justa you know, you'll hear the

(16:59):
never Trumper in the anti Trump crowd, it's just all Trump's fault if he
was out of the picture. Isthis all on him or he's just been
the mouthpiece that has I think it'sexceptionally on Trump because we've never seen a
presidential candidate, let alone an incumbentpresident, react to an election defeat the

(17:23):
way he did and the way he'scontinued to do over such a long period
of time. We've saw over sixtycourt cases litigated into twenty twenty. I
think only one of those went inTrump's favor, and so I think Donald
Trump has to bear heavy responsibility inthat. But as I said, there

(17:48):
have been other candidates, including onthe Democratic side, who have also questioned
outcomes when they've lost, and Ithink that's become more prevalent over time.
Shussed with Trump. But I thinkTrump far went far beyond what any other
losing candidates had done. Now,let's talk about the hush money case,

(18:11):
and you know, convicted on thirtyfour felony counts, their repetitive counts.
Where were you were you surprised withthis? Or I see I thought maybe
the jury would try to It seemslike we all try to pacify one side
or the other, so a fewguilty here and then not. But I
thought it was entirely plausible that somewould be guilty verdicts but others not.

(18:33):
I thought it was possible we'd geta hung jury convincing twelve people. Yeah,
to be unanimous is not easy todo, so I was surprised a
bit when the thirty four guilty verdictswere read. I think the issue here,
so there's the legal issue, andI think the most important thing there

(18:57):
is that this was a full courtproceeding with a jury of twelve people who
had all gone through the process ofthe attorneys, including Trump's attorneys, striking
jurors that they felt were biased.It is certainly a New York Manhattan courtroom,

(19:17):
so you can't get away from thefact that these are jurors from Manhattan.
But there was some variety in thebackgrounds of those folks, including we
know from the jury questionnaires, whichnews media sources of media they get information
That said, to me, themost revealing part of this is after a

(19:38):
full trial, after two days ofdeliberation, you got twelve jurors on thirty
four counts, all agreeing that Trumpwas guilty of the crimes as charged.
I don't think that, and we'llprobably see it in the next few days.
From the polling. Don't think that'sconvinced very many people to change their

(20:02):
views of Donald Trump. But itis from a judicial point of view,
a trial that was carried out andgot unanimous jury verdicts across all these cases.
There will surely be a Trump appealif that judgment that that will take
a long time towards its way throughthe courts, and so whatever arguments he

(20:26):
raises in those appeals may or maynot succeed. But the arguments his attorneys
raised during this trial failed to convincejurors to not convict him. Yeah.
Yeah, And isn't it like whatwithin twenty days or so of sentencing then

(20:47):
they can do the appeal or whathave you? Would you be stunned?
I mean I think a lot ofpeople are. Of course, you always
have the friends or the zealots.Prison it. No, there's not could
be prison well, and just forthe logistics of having to protect right now,
I think the Again I'm not alawyer, but but what I've read

(21:10):
says that these types of cases,which are not all that uncommon, not
with the president as a defendant,but the types of cases rarely result in
any kind of jail. Senate findsperhaps probation. There are certainly other intermediate

(21:30):
punishments that could be done, approbation. I can't go to that summit.
Yes, I don't know how thiswill work out. I don't know how
the judge will be thinking about it. But it's certainly a complicated thing to
have a former president and soon tobe the nominee of his party in this

(21:56):
circumstance. So it's it's you can'tlook back to historical analogies because there's simply
not historical analogy. Yeah, exactly, I know. I'm just looking at
the most recent pool. It wouldhave been from late last month. Yeah,
where this question posed to and thiswas a national survey, right,

(22:19):
yes, and posed to voters here, and it did it did kind of
switch some numbers around. If Trumpwas convicted, he went down to the
bide and by not a whopper,but several percentage points. We asked the
question twice, who would you votefor? Which we asked early in the

(22:41):
questionnaire and then late in the questionnairewe said, if it turns out he's
found guilty, who would you votefor? And that flipped from a little
bit of a Trump lead to alittle bit of a Biden lead in the
guilty context, about a four pointBiden lead. But subsequent polling after the
decision, that other after the courtruling, after done by other pollsters,

(23:06):
this is what I'm saying. Theyhave found small movements, usually a point
or two, not as much asthe four we found, certainly not as
much as the sixth to fourteen pointsthat some other polls found, though in
fairness, those big moves were moreon a question would this make you less

(23:26):
likely to vote for Trump? Asopposed to the director? Who would you
vote for? A question that Iprefer. Look if we go back to
the first Trump impeachment as an exampleof something a little bit analogous, we
pulled before the House impeached him,we pulled after the House did, and

(23:48):
before the Senate considered the case,and we pulled after the Senate acquitted Trump,
and we saw virtually no change inpublic opinion. Hearing was Wisconsin,
the same deep split and divide,but people didn't become more convinced that Trump
had done an impeachable offense. Theydidn't decide he had done less of an

(24:11):
impeachable defense after the Senate ac quittedhim. And of course you can look
back to twenty sixteen in the AccessHollywood video and things like that. And
so I think, prior to theruling of the court, finding modest single

(24:32):
digit movement, Lausible made in factturn out to slightly overstate how much of
an effect is it. I willsay that these quick pulls just in the
last few days after the court rulingare good and valuable as far as they
go. But I'm more interested inwhether there's any kind of lasting impact.

(24:56):
So I know we're impatient, butI would wait a couple of weeks to
see whether the polling now across bythen across a number of different pollsters,
is showing any consistent movement before Ijumped on either saying it had no effect
or because yeah, it's still freshand it's still I mean, it's not

(25:18):
like we're going to forget this.It's not like the Democrats aren't going to
use this, you know. Imean, but people's emotions tend to kind
of relax, calm down a bit, or they could develop more. I
r over time. It's probably justthe big, the obvious segments that it
would be interesting to see the impactsfor that all important independent crowd, if

(25:42):
that would be enough that they wouldsay yeah done. Not even entertainment independence
are critical group, the so calleddouble haters, the people who have unfavorable
views of both Biden and of Trump. How did those folks break? And
that's about twenty percent of the electorate, So that's a pretty good group.

(26:02):
And within the Republican Party about twentypercent of Republicans still hold an unfavorable view
of Trump, and in primaries herein Wisconsin, twenty two percent voted for
someone other than Trump in the inthe primary. Well, even with the
past primaries, this week, NickyHaley is still still getting some votes.
So my question also is in thosethree groups independent, the double haters,

(26:27):
and the faction of Republicans that aren'tfans of Trump, do we see any
movement over the next couple of weeksor so? Of those are the groups
that I'd be looking for. IsRFK Junior still going to be a player
or did the worm eat part ofmy brains ed push him aside of it?

(26:49):
Or he has been in national pollingholding around ten percent according to the
five point thirty eight dot Com average. I think the issue with him is
twofold. One is independent candidates usuallylose strength over the summer in the fall

(27:10):
as people recognize that they're not goingto win an electoral college majority, but
that doesn't always happen. Ross Burowgot nineteen percent in nineteen ninety two,
so you don't want to say thatcan't happen. The other issues with Kennedy
are Number one, ballot access.How many states is he actually going to

(27:30):
gain a position on the ballot?Barrow qualified in all fifty states. Kennedy
is nowhere close to that, andwe won't know for a while which states
he's officially on the ballot and failsto get on the ballot, So that's
important. If he qualifies for thedebate in June, he has to be

(27:52):
on enough ballots to theoretically win twohundred and seventy electoral votes necessary to be
elected. That doesn't at the momentlook like he'll qualify for In polling,
he has to be at fifteen percentor more in four national or state polls.
He's got at least three of thosenow, so I'd say the odds

(28:15):
are decent that he would get thefourth pole that shows him that high,
even though his average across the countryis only ten percent. They're polls that
suit including might we had him atseventeen percent in May? So I think
those are questions. Being on thedebate stage will be a boost for his
campaign. Oh yeah, absolutely,But then we still have that Jill Stein,

(28:37):
she keeps on getting on the valuehas she made it on? She
as? I understand that she ison the ballot in Wisconsin because the Green
Party got sufficient votes in the past. Libertarian parties also on the ballot.
They just nominated a presidential candidate,and the Constitution Party, I believe is

(29:00):
guaranteed a spot on our ballot.But that leaves Cornell West, who I've
not heard much about, getting onthe ballot here, and also Kennedy.
I would expect at least Kennedy andperhaps West to get on, but I'm
not sure where they are in thatprocess, and I may be wrong about
how much progress they've made. Allright, Charles Franklin has been my guest

(29:23):
this morning. Of course, heis the poll director Marquette Law School pool
and joins us. We'll be joiningus a few more times here before November.
And man, it's already we're gettingclose to the fourth of July.
Well it's not close close, butstill before you know it, it'll be
here election Day. You've been listeningto Madison for hum