Wisconsin judge moving ahead with 11 felony charges against 2 Trump allies

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

When Donald Trump won the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he was facing four criminal indictments — two of them pertaining to his efforts to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. One was a federal case prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); the other was a Georgia case prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

After Trump won the 2024 election, Smith cited DOJ's policy against prosecuting a sitting president. And in late November, Fulton Superior Judge Scott McAfee ruled that the Georgia case was officially "dismissed in its entirety."

But that doesn't necessarily mean that allies of Trump cannot face election interference-related charges.

In a decision on Monday, December 15, Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Judge John Hyland ruled that there was probable cause to move forward with 11 felony charges against two Trump allies in that state: Jim Troupis (Trump's 2020 campaign attorney for Wisconsin) and Mike Roman (director of Trump's 2020 Election Day operations). Troupis and Roman are facing charges for their role in the fake elector scheme of 2020.

According to Associated Press reporter Scott Bauer, "The charges relate to attempts by the former aides to present a slate of Republican electors to Congress falsely claiming that Trump had won Wisconsin that year even though he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case claiming Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive."

Hyland, Bauer notes, "said communication from the defendants showed their intent to present as legitimate a certificate awarding Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes to Trump, not a document to be accepted only if a court ruled that Trump won the state."

"The preliminary hearing of a third person charged, former Trump attorney Ken Chesebro, was postponed amid questions about what statements the man made to prosecutors that could be admitted in court," Bauer reports. "The judge said he wanted to hold a separate hearing on whether comments Chesebro made in an agreement with Wisconsin investigators were allowed to be admitted at trial."

Read the full Associated Press article at this link.

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