Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
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Former president and current candidate Donald Trump continues to make the “Big Lie” a cornerstone of his third bid for the White House. As he campaigns across the nation, he still insists that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and that Joe Biden is not legitimately the U.S. president.
But 1,400 pages of emails, texts and other documents made public this week have confirmed that his attorneys and some supporters knew the truth and conspired to challenge the validity of the Biden win in several states, including Minnesota’s neighbor to the east. The settlement of a Wisconsin case left no doubt that a scheme was planned and orchestrated by Trump lawyers and campaign officials and was replicated in six other states.
As Americans are in the throes this year’s presidential campaign, they should keep in mind this proof-positive, critical evidence of lies and fraud from the Republican candidate’s campaign. The newly released documents show that Trump’s team tried to use fake electors, even tricking some of them, to create a “cloud of confusion” to assist efforts to overturn the election.
The documents were released on Monday in connection with agreements to settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December.
As part of the agreement, attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over the documents, photos and videos with details about the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin.
A few days after the 2020 election Chesebro emailed Troupis, a former judge who was working for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, and explained how to overturn the vote.