A Columbus man was one of Trump’s fake electors in Georgia. Will legal issues follow?

A Columbus man who joined a slate of Republican presidential electors who falsely claimed Donald Trump won the state and submitted fake Electoral College votes said the group acted at the instruction of Trump campaign attorneys to keep a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s 2020 election results alive.

Georgia Republican Party treasurer Joseph Brannan told the Ledger-Enquirer that his intention was not to subvert democracy, but to protect Trump’s legal rights after the former president and Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer filed a lawsuit that alleged the election result was in doubt.

“There was enough to meet the initial standard to show there were (enough) ballots in dispute,” Brannan said. “This was being asked by the (Trump) campaign. So if it preserved his legal rights, that made sense to me. …If Biden had a lawsuit pending and the Democratic electors filed paperwork to preserve his legal challenge, I would have had no issue.”

Brannan was one of 16 Georgians who signed false electoral certificates that were submitted to Congress as part of the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s win.

The Trump electors in Georgia and six other states face possible state and federal criminal charges for their actions. Legal experts told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week the electors may have violated laws against false statements, forgery, racketeering and election fraud.

On Friday, two Georgia electors, Shafer and then-state party secretary Shawn Still, were among the Trump electors subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Legal experts who spoke with the Ledger-Enquirer said that intent and how the electors contributed to Trump’s larger scheme will be key factors in determining their responsibility. The legal advice Georgia electors received from the Trump campaign may not be enough to shield them from charges.

Brannan said he has not been contacted by state or federal investigators as of Monday afternoon.

“I know what our intent was and it was not for any sort of attempted subversion,” he said. “It was simply to preserve the former president’s legal rights in his pending legal challenge in Georgia.”

What did the Republican electors do?

Brannan, who has served as the state party treasurer since May 2019, was selected as one of the GOP presidential electors by the state executive committee in March 2020. In Georgia, the Democratic and Republican parties each pick 16 people to serve as electors. The winning party sends their electors to cast Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes for the state’s winner

At the instruction of the Trump campaign attorneys, Shafer called the Republican electors to meet at the state capitol Dec. 14 to cast electoral votes for Trump — the same day Georgia’s legitimate presidential electors cast their ballots for Biden, Brannan said.

Those close to Trump ran similar elector schemes in six other states.

Brannan was unable to name the campaign attorneys but said he recognized them from other events they attended throughout the state. Filings from the campaign lawsuit show that Atlanta attorney Ray S. Smith III represented Trump and Columbus attorney Mark C. Post represented Shafer in Fulton County court.

When Georgia’s Trump electors met, a Fulton County judge had not held a hearing on the Trump lawsuit. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Trump’s attorneys to hear the case.

Brannan said the campaign lawsuit deserved to be heard in court, and he differentiated it from other “nonsense” legal challenges like the Sidney Powell “Kraken” lawsuit that pushed conspiracy theories and alleged thousands of illegal ballots were cast.

“(The attorneys told) us if the case was heard and ruled in favor of President Trump and it ultimately changed the outcome in Georgia, that the Republican electors (needed) to complete the process because it was their belief that if we didn’t, the case would have been moot,” Brannan said.

Copies of the illegitimate election certificates were obtained and published by American Oversight in March 2021. Georgia’s Republican electors claimed to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” despite state officials certifying Biden’s victory weeks earlier. The document did not mention the Trump and Shafer lawsuit.



When asked why the GOP electors did not indicate their vote was meant to keep a Trump legal challenge alive, Brannan cited advice from Trump-affiliated attorneys about the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which outlines procedures for the counting of electoral votes following a presidential election.

The electors did not discuss adding language about the lawsuit, Brannan said.

“I know now, way after the fact, that other states included different language,” he said.

Could the electors face criminal charges?

Two legal experts who spoke with the Ledger-Enquirer said Brannan’s account raises questions for federal and state investigators looking into the Trump campaign’s efforts to undermine Georgia’s election.

In addition to the congressional investigation, a Fulton County Superior Court judge granted county district attorney Fani Willis approval for a special grand jury as part of her probe into Trump’s attempts to overturn Georgia’s election.

Norman Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings Institute who wrote a report about Trump’s possible legal violations in the state, said the GOP document was “highly questionable.” The advice Brannan, and possibly others, received may not shield them from accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

“Is it really plausible that anyone would actually believe that? There are limits,” he said. “(Brannan’s) account raises a lot of serious questions. …It raises more questions than it answers.”

Anthony Kreis, an assistant professor at Georgia State College of Law who specializes in constitutional law, said he’s skeptical of claims that the Trump electors were unaware of what they were getting themselves into. The question of whether their actions were criminal is an issue that must be solved later as more evidence emerges.

“Weeks had passed when they did this,” he said. “Nobody with any real information or knowledge rejected what was happening. …There was no evidence of anything wrong. They only met there and filed those documents because they believed in conspiracy theories.”

He called the actions “egregiously anti-democratic,” but he added that it does not necessarily mean the electors broke the law.

“Something foul happened,” he said. “Something wrong happened in Georgia. The folks who participated in it were wrong.”