(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/06/2023) Attorneys for two of the 16 GOP would-be 2020 electors asked a judge to dismiss their clients’ criminal charges, with one proclaiming “there is no crime” and another challenging the Attorney General’s “brainwashed” description of the defendants.
But Ingham County District Judge Kristen Simmons sided with the Attorney General’s office, saying one defense attorney’s motion for summary disposition – which is used in civil cases, not criminal – is inappropriate.
“It’s a felony criminal proceeding,” Simmons told Birmingham defense attorney Kevin Kijewski, who represents Clifford Frost. “The defense and the prosecution have a right to a preliminary examination and the purpose is to require the prosecution to put forth sufficient evidence … to establish if they have probable cause to charge your client with a crime. …
“To make an argument we should do a disposition based on a summary of the proceedings, would be inappropriate and would be pre-emptive,” the judge noted.
Frost and Mari-Ann Henry are two of the 16, including former GOP chair Meshawn Maddock, who are charged with eight felonies, including forgery, for signing a certificate falsely claiming that then President Donald Trump won the state’s 16 electoral votes instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
The hearings were prompted, in part, by Attorney General Dana Nessel’s comments during a September webinar before a liberal group that the defendants had been “brainwashed” and “legitimately” believed Trump won Michigan’s 2020 election. Biden won by 3 percentage points.
Henry’s Southfield attorney, George Brown, argued Nessel’s statements should nullify the charges since each count requires the intent to defraud.
Assistant Attorney General LaDonna Logan countered that Nessel’s “extrajudicial statements … are not evidence” before the court.
Kijewski, who withdrew his motion to dismiss based on Nessel’s comments, argued there is “absolutely no crime” and as a result, there is no need for a preliminary examination.
“If I take a look at the instrument that the individuals allegedly were purported to give to Congress and to other individuals, they didn’t claim to be the Democratic electors,” Kijewski said. “They signed their own names. This is a political protest, if anything . . .
“It is legally impossible, absolutely impossible, for these folks to have committed a crime for the facts being alleged,” he added.
Kijewski also requested that Frost’s preliminary exam be held separately from the co-defendants – whom he referred to as “defacto co-defendants” – but Simmons denied the request, ruling Frost is alleged to have “acted in concert” with the other defendants.
