LANSING, Mich. — President Donald Trump has pardoned more than 20 people who contributed to the push to overturn his loss in Michigan's 2020 election, providing a sign of support for allies who have faced investigations from state prosecutors.

Late Sunday night, Ed Martin, who is working as the Republican president's pardon attorney, posted a list of dozens of names on X with the words, "Important pardon of alternate electors of 2020." The individuals were from multiple battleground states where Trump and his supporters challenged Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the weeks following the Nov. 3, 2020, election.

The pardons appeared to be symbolic in nature and to represent a signal of assistance from the White House. The pardons wouldn't affect any state-level charges against the group, such as those that have been unsuccessfully pursued by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat.

Among the people on the list were the 16 Michigan residents who signed a document falsely claiming Trump had won Michigan's 16 electoral votes, Trump associates who helped guide the false electors strategy and lawyers who advanced unproven claims of widespread election fraud.

"This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 presidential election and continues the process of national reconciliation," said the pardon document, signed by Trump.

The proclamation said Trump was granting a full pardon to all U.S. citizens for conduct related to organizing and submitting "any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors" and any conduct "relating to their efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities" in the 2020 election.

In a statement, Nessel slammed the pardons.

“In 2020, President Trump launched an all-out assault against American democracy in his efforts to overturn the presidential election results and preserve his hold on power," Nessel said. "Today, President Trump pardoned more than 70 individuals, many of whom authored, executed, or otherwise knowingly assisted the president’s plot and efforts to overturn the election.

"Any other characterization of this outrageous slate of pardons is only a further attack on our sacred ideals of a government by, for and of the people."

Trump's personal lawyer in 2020 and the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and fellow lawyer Jenna Ellis received pardons. They came to Lansing in December 2020, testified before a state House committee and urged majority Republicans in the Legislature to intervene in the results of an election in which more than 5 million Michigan residents voted.

However, Trump lost Michigan 48% to 51% to Biden in 2020. The results were certified by bipartisan canvassing boards in all 83 counties and the Board of State Canvassers. An investigation by a state Senate Republican committee later upheld Biden's victory.

Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani and the new communications director for the Michigan Republican Party, said the former mayor "stands by his work following the 2020 presidential election, when he responded to the legitimate concerns he was receiving from thousands of concerned Americans from across the country."

"Mayor Giuliani never sought a pardon but is deeply grateful for President Trump’s decision," Goodman said. "This action further highlights the years of unjust attacks against the mayor and so many others and reinforces what should now be clear to everyone: Mayor Giuliani deserves to have his bar license immediately reinstated without delay."

In 2024, Giuliani was disbarred in New York for making false statements about the 2020 election.

The president also pardoned campaign advisers, like Mike Roman and Kenneth Chesebro, who helped with the plan to gather and submit false electoral certificates to challenge the election defeat in Congress, where the states' electoral voters were counted on Jan. 6, 2021.

The apparent objective of some of the advisers' work was to bolster claims that the November 2020 presidential election was "rigged" and ultimately "void the results favoring" Biden, Chesebro, who helped create the electors plan, wrote in a Jan. 1, 2021, email, previously obtained by The Detroit News, to Boris Epshteyn, a top Trump adviser.

Epshteyn was also on the pardon list. As was lawyer Sidney Powell, who led a failed lawsuit to overturn Michigan's election.

Roman was directly involved with the false Michigan electors certificate, which was mailed to the National Archives.

Internal campaign emails previously showed that Trump campaign staffer Shawn Flynn prepared the mailing and sought advice from others on how to get it to the U.S. Senate office of then-Vice President Mike Pence, who oversaw the counting of electoral votes.

"Just wanted to check if these need to be sent a certain class of mail along with the extra service of certified mail and registered mail respectively?" Flynn wrote of the false Michigan certificate in a Dec. 15, 2020, email to Chesebro, two other Trump campaign staffers and an employee of the Republican National Committee.

"Choose the fastest," Roman, the Trump campaign's director of Election Day operations, replied at about 2 p.m. Dec. 15, 2020.

As for the Michigan Trump electors, an Ingham County judge threw out the state-level criminal charges against them in September, ruling that state prosecutors had failed to show they had an intent to commit fraud.

Judge Kristen Simmons said she believed the Republicans were exercising their constitutional rights by seeking a redress of grievances about the election. Nessel's office hasn't announced whether an appeal will come.

Nessel brought the charges against the Trump electors in 2023.

"The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan," Nessel said at the time.

Among the 16 Michigan electors pardoned were Kathy Berden, former Republican national committeewoman, and Meshawn Maddock, former co-chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party.

"Once again, America’s best President stands up against endless lawfare," Maddock said Monday. "I just hope this is a precursor to prosecuting Jack Smith and Dana Nessel."

Jack Smith was the former federal special counsel who led the nationwide investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

--------

©2025 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.