New forgery charges have been filed against Nevada’s six so-called “fake electors” in Carson City District Court after the Nevada attorney general’s initial prosecution was dismissed in Clark County earlier this year, a move called "preemptive" by the office given that the statute of limitations on the charges is set to expire this week.
The charges relate to accusations that the Republican fake electors knowingly forged documents purporting to be the state’s true electors on Dec. 14, 2020. On that day, they held a symbolic ceremony outside the Legislature to “cast” their electoral votes for then-President Donald Trump, the same day that the state’s actual electoral votes were cast for Joe Biden.
Nevada’s statute of limitations for forgery charges is four years, meaning they had to be filed by Dec. 14, 2024, which is Saturday. The new charges come about one month before Trump is set to be sworn in for a second term as president. Trump cannot pardon anyone implicated in the case because the charges are on the state level and are not federal.
In a statement announcing the charges Thursday, Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, called the filing “a preemptive measure to ensure that the statute of limitations on this charge does not lapse.”
“My office still believes that Clark County is an appropriate venue for this case and will continue to seek a ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court to return to the Eighth Judicial District Court,” the statement said. “While we disagree with the finding of improper venue and will continue to seek to overturn it, we are preserving our legal rights in order to ensure that these fake electors do not escape justice.”
The six defendants — Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, Clark County GOP Chairman Jesse Law, state party Vice Chair Jim Hindle, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice — were each indicted on two counts by a grand jury last December over their role in submitting fake election documents to federal and state election authorities that purported to cast Nevada’s six electoral votes for Trump. The Republican president and his allies repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 election.
The charges carried punishments up to a maximum of four and five years in prison and a minimum of one year in prison. The forgery charge on its own is a category D felony, which carries a penalty of between one and four years in prison.
Richard Wright, the lawyer representing McDonald, said in a statement that “the refiling of the dismissed charges looks like a political move by the Attorney General who announced today his plans to run for governor” and that Ford “should heed the advice of Will Rogers (‘If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging’).” He added that he would address the issues in court.
A Clark County District Court judge dismissed those charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument on the grounds that Clark County was an inappropriate venue. The statute of limitations for “offering a false instrument for filing” is three years, so state prosecutors could not re-file that charge in Carson City.
The Clark County dismissal is pending an appeal in the Nevada Supreme Court, where a victory for state prosecutors would result in the charges in Carson City being dropped because a defendant cannot face duplicate charges for the same crime. It is unclear when the high court will rule on the appeal, but the state’s attempt to expedite the ruling failed earlier this year.
The state initially pursued charges in Clark County — where a jury makeup would likely be more Democratic than other jurisdictions — because two of the defendants live in Clark County, certain mail related to the plan passed through the county and fraudulent electoral documents were mailed to a federal judge in Las Vegas. However, that mail was never opened in Las Vegas and was instead rerouted to Reno.
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was unconvinced by these arguments and signaled that Carson City would be a more appropriate venue to pursue the charges because that is where the illegitimate signing ceremony took place. Attorneys for the fake electors had argued in earlier motions to dismiss the Clark County case that the charges should have been filed in Carson City or Douglas County, which is where the fake elector documents were originally mailed from.
“You have literally, in my opinion, a crime that has occurred in another jurisdiction,” Holthus said at a June hearing. “It’s so appropriately up north and so appropriately not here.”