(DC Pundit) – Michigan Democrats just got slapped with a reality check. A Governor Whitmer-appointed judge, Kristin Simmins, has thrown out Attorney General Dana Nessel’s high-profile case against 15 Republican alternate electors from the 2020 election.
The case had been a political show trial from the beginning, targeting 15 mostly senior citizens whose “crime” was daring to submit an alternate slate of electoral votes for President Trump in a state where the 2020 results were bitterly contested. Nessel clearly saw an opportunity to score points with the far-left base. But instead, she ended up with egg on her face.
Adding insult to injury, a video surfaced showing Nessel bragging on a Zoom call with a leftist activist group about how she had maneuvered to get the case heard in Lansing—a deep-blue city where she assumed no Republican elector could possibly get a fair jury trial. Michigan’s top law enforcement officer openly mocking the right of citizens to a fair trial? That tells you everything you need to know.
Michigan’s partisan hack AG Dana Nessel explains to far-left group how difficult it is to get the Republican 2020 alternate electors to flip on each other because “they legit believe” Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
She totally blew her case when she admitted they didn’t… pic.twitter.com/ixcoCsUP5r
— PattyMI (@PattyLovesTruth) July 17, 2025
Judge Simmins wasn’t impressed. She reminded the courtroom that the state had to prove the electors tried to present “a counterfeit or fraudulent document,” calling those “specific intent crimes.”
The “conspiracy to commit forgery” charge? Same problem. Judge Simmins noted the electors never intended to deceive anyone. She even pointed out that they posed for a group photo in the Lansing GOP headquarters basement after signing the documents. As the judge dryly remarked, “People who are committing a crime don’t pose for a photo—that would be weird!”
Nessel’s star witness, GOP elector James Renner, who was given immunity for testifying against his fellow electors, backfired badly. Renner admitted that at no point did he believe a crime was being committed, undercutting the very basis of Nessel’s case. Her only investigator, Agent Howard Shock, also turned out to be a liability, fumbling testimony so badly that Judge Simmins shook her head more than once. “This is a fraud case, and I don’t believe there is enough evidence to prove it,” she concluded.
Even where the judge hinted that Meshawn Maddock might technically be chargeable for organizing the meeting with Trump’s attorneys, she pointed to videos of Maddock and Marian Sheridan explaining they were casting alternate votes because they believed the election was stolen, not because they intended to replace the Democrat electors.
In the end, Judge Simmins delivered the knockout punch: “I believe they were exercising their constitutional rights to seek redress, and that’s based on the statements of all of the people’s witnesses. And for those reasons, these cases will not be bound over to the circuit court and this case will be dismissed.”
Nessel’s attempt to criminalize political dissent has officially collapsed. For Michigan Republicans, this ruling is more than a victory, it’s proof that even in a state run by Democrats, truth can still overpower political vendettas.
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