Fake Trump Electors Cut Deals

Georgia prosecutors have reached immunity deals with at least half of the 16 fake electors who tried to keep former President Donald Trump in power in December 2020. Under the agreements, eight Republicans won't be charged with crimes if they provide truthful testimony in the Fulton County investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election, the Washington Post reports. District Attorney Fani Willis has said a meeting of the fake electors that month, which took place after Gov. Brian Kemp had certified President Biden's victory in Georgia, is a focus of the investigation.

David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, is among the fake electors who could still be charged. Shafer led the meeting and maintains there was nothing wrong with casting electoral votes for Trump, saying the idea was to have the votes in place should Trump win his lawsuit seeking to throw out Georgia's results. At the time of the Dec. 14 meeting, Biden's victory in the state had been confirmed by three vote counts, per the New York Times. The deals were revealed in a court filing Friday by Kimberly Debrow, per Politico, in which she sought to continue representing the full group after Willis said some of the fake electors had accused Debrow of not telling them about the immunity offers. (More Election 2020 stories.)