Incriminated Trump lawyer begs state judge to respect president’s pardon

President Donald Trump's former campaign attorney is facing 11 counts of forgery in the state of Wisconsin for his role in the president's fake elector scheme to overthrow a legitimate U.S. election. Now the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports he wants a Wisconsin judge to let him off the hook.

Trump pardoned Jim Troupis in November for his actions related to the fake elector scheme, as the president has for many of his cohorts in the 2020 plot — but that pardon only applies to federal courts. Now Troupis, a former Dane County judge, is asking a Dane County judge to apply Trump’s get-out-of-jail-free card to the state charges.

The Sentinel reports Troupis represented Trump's Wisconsin campaign during the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Republicans in battleground states pretended to be electors for Trump in an effort to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the certification of Biden's victory over Trump.

Trump has been quick to absolve his henchmen of consequences, but Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is apparently not so generous, having filed charges against Troupis and other architects of the fake elector scheme in 2024.

Troupis delivered his motion to the court ahead of his June 16 arraignment on the charges, asking the judge overseeing the case to dismiss one count of conspiracy to commit forgery because Trump pardoned Troupis last November. And Troupis and his attorney assert that Trump’s pardon should also apply to the state case against him.

"… President Trump has chosen to pardon him," Troupis' attorneys argued.

Additionally, Troupis is asking the judge to move his case to Jefferson County, arguing that he won't get a fair trial in Dane County due to the ballots he sought to victimize and disqualify during the 2020 recount were from Dane County voters.

"Here, the 'victims' will include, at the very least, all Dane County residents whose votes were challenged. That is so because jurors will be told, repeatedly, that Troupis tried to unlawfully throw out their votes, their family’s votes, their friend’s votes, their neighbor’s votes," Troupis attorney Joseph Bugni wrote in the motion.

Troupis led Trump’s 2020 recount effort in Wisconsin, arguing specifically that in-person absentee ballots in that county should be thrown out — even though he himself and his wife both voted early using the state's in-person absentee option. According to the Sentinel, their names appeared on exhibits Troupis submitted to the Dane County Board of Canvassers in 2020 to dispute while the county was retallying ballots.

Troupis would not answer questions about why he and his wife voted that way, the Sentinel reports.

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