Jim Troupis, the former Trump campaign lawyer from Dane County who was charged in an alleged fake voter scheme, spoke about the case and the prosecution in a radio interview two days before his first appearance.
“There hasn’t been a single morning or night since the beginning of 2021 that I haven’t worried about this case, that I haven’t thought about it,” Troupis, a former Dane County circuit judge, told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna. WISN-AM Tuesday afternoon. “They’re coming after me and every member of my family. They’re coming after my license. They’re coming after my bankers.’
Jim Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Court judge hired by the Trump campaign to oversee the recounts, is shown during oral arguments before the Wisconsin Supreme Court on December 12, 2020.
In addition to Troupis, charged are Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and alleged chief architect of the 2020 election plan, and Mike Roman, a former Trump aide who allegedly handed Wisconsin’s list of fake voter IDs to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer to to get the vice president. Mike Pence on January 6, 2021. The three are facing 11 felony charges filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul’s office of duping Republican voters who voted for Trump in 2020 even though Joe Biden won the state.
The defense for the civil case cost “well over half a million dollars,” Troupis said on WISN, adding that he had to find a Kansas City attorney. “If you don’t think they wanted to put me out of business, you don’t understand what’s going on.”
Troupis encouraged people to come to the Dane County Courthouse Thursday morning, when the suspects are scheduled to appear. He said the fellow judges he served with are “good judges” and “honest people” who “find themselves in a very difficult political problem.”
“I don’t think it’s funny because I could go to prison for six years. And I have no doubt that they would love to do that, to make me the big kid,” Troupis said.
Each of the 11 charges against the three carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison, in addition to a $10,000 fine. Kaul’s office on Tuesday added 10 charges to the initial indictment against each defendant.
According to the complaint, most voters said they did not agree to their signatures being presented as if Trump had won the state without a court ruling saying so. The complaint also details how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman allegedly created a fake document stating that Trump won Wisconsin’s ten Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver it to then-Vice President Mike Pence for certification.
More: What you need to know about Wisconsin’s new false electoral charges against Trump associates
Biden defeated Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s victory. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court affirmed the results in a 4-3 vote on December 14, 2020. Troupis represented the Trump campaign in the case.
Less than an hour later, Democrats gathered at the Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.
At the same time, the Republican fake voters gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won. They submitted their files 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 voters said they held the rally only to ensure that the state’s electoral votes would be cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the state’s real winner.
The ten voters have not been criminally charged in connection with the forged documents. Last year, the group settled a lawsuit filed against them by real Biden voters over their role in the scheme. As part of the settlement, the fake voters acknowledged that their actions were used in an attempt to overturn an election.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jim Troupis, lawyer charged in fake voter scheme, opposes case
