MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Monday postponed a preliminary hearing for one of three former aides to President Donald Trump facing felony forgery charges related to the 2020 election amid questions about what statements the man made to prosecutors could be admitted in court.
The move was a setback for prosecutors with the state Department of Justice who filed the charges and initially called for pushing ahead with the hearing for Ken Chesebro, an attorney who advised Trump's campaign.
The preliminary hearing for two other defendants continued Monday.
The three former aides face 11 felony charges each related to their roles in the 2020 fake elector scheme. In addition to Chesebro, the other defendants are Jim Troupis, who was Trump's campaign attorney in Wisconsin, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.
The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland said Monday that holding a separate evidentiary hearing to determine whether comments Chesebro made to Wisconsin investigators were given under an agreement not to be used against him in a trial “may be the best route.”
Chesebro made his comments to investigators voluntarily and there was no immunity agreement given to him in exchange for talking, said Assistant Wisconsin Attorney General Adrienne Blais.
She called the move by Chesebro's attorney to not allow his comments at the preliminary hearing “a clear sandbag.”
The surprise move is just the latest attempt by the three Trump aides to derail the case.
Troupis last week tried unsuccessfully to get the judge to step down in the case and have it moved to another county. Troupis, who the other two defendants joined in his motion, alleged that the judge did not write a previous order issued in August declining to dismiss the case. Instead, he accused the father of the judge's law clerk, a retired judge, of actually writing the opinion.
Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he was charged, also alleged that all of the judges in Dane County are biased against him and he can't get a fair trial.
Hyland said he and a staff attorney alone wrote the order. Hyland also said Troupis presented no evidence to back up his claims of bias and refused to step down or delay the hearing.
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegations.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, headed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, brought the felony forgery charges in 2024, alleging that the three defrauded the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020.
Prosecutors contend the three lied to the Republicans about how the certificate they signed would be used as part of a plan to submit paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence, falsely claiming that Trump had won the battleground state that year.
The complaint said a majority of the 10 Republicans told investigators that they were needed to sign the elector certificate indicating Trump had won only to preserve his legal options if a court changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.
A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said. Also, a majority said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.
Andrew Schoeneck, a special agent in the criminal investigation division of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, detailed the state's case against the three former Trump associates under questioning from prosecutors during the preliminary hearing.
The Trump associates have argued that no crime took place.
Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 but fought to have the defeat overturned. He won the state in both 2016 and 2024.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them seeking damages.
This story has been corrected to show that the attorneys who are charged formerly worked on Trump's campaign, but are still practicing attorneys.
