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Five Republican residents of New Mexico attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting fake Electoral College documents to Congress as part of the Jan. 6, 2021 certification process. Two of the fake electors were subpoenaed by the Department of Justice for their roles in the scheme, and the New Mexico Attorney General referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
After the Department of Justice announced its federal indictment about 2020 election interference and Fulton County, Georgia’s district attorney filed another election-related indictment in August 2023, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) opened a separate state investigation into the fake elector scheme. But since the certificate submitted by New Mexico’s fake electors included contingency language indicating that their votes should only be used if legal challenges to Biden’s victory succeeded, he declined to bring charges against the five individuals who signed the document.
“By the time the Trump campaign contacted New Mexico’s fake electors, the campaign had added conditional language to the certificate,” Torrez wrote in a January 2024 letter to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D). Because of that, “there is not enough evidence” in “support of a charge of forgery.”
According to Source NM, on Dec. 14, 2020 the five fake electors mailed signed, notarized certificates to Congress and the National Archives purporting to be official Electoral College votes for Trump.
Politico reported that on Dec. 13, 2020, Christina Bobb, then a One America News anchor and subsequently a legal representative for the former president, briefed a group of Trump’s lawyers on the scheme.
The Big Lie
- The following five fake electors from New Mexico signed bogus documents claiming that Trump had won the 2020 election in their state:.
- Lupe Garcia: a business owner in Albuquerque
- Anissa Ford-Tinnin: former executive director of the state Republican Party
- Deborah Maestas: a former chair of the Republican Party of New Mexico who was subpoenaed by the Department of Justice for her role in the fake electors scheme
- Jewll Powdrell: a former managing director at ABQ Sales & Marketing Group who was subpoenaed by the Department of Justice for his role in the fake electors scheme
- Rosie Tripp: former national committeewoman for the Republican Party of New Mexico
- One other individual was originally intended to act as a fake elector but was ultimately replaced:
- Harvey Yates: national committeeman for the Republican Party of New Mexico and former chair of the party