Left: Then-Trump campaign attorney James Troupis speaks to Congress about election integrity in Dec. 2020 (Greg Nash/Pool via AP). Center: President Donald Trump speaks during a lunch in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Evan Vucci). Right: Michael Roman appears in a booking photo (Fulton County Jail).
Two former advisers to President Donald Trump must go to trial in Wisconsin over their alleged efforts to overturn the will of the voters in 2020 and declare he had won the state in the presidential election, a judge has ruled.
There is enough evidence to take former Trump campaign attorney James Troupis and ex-aide Michael Roman to trial, Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland said during a hearing on Monday. Both men face 11 felony forgery charges stemming from an apparent scheme to have so-called “fake electors” lie and certify that Trump had won Wisconsin when in fact he had not.
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Evidence against former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, also a defendant in the case, will be considered separately, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. According to the case docket, prosecutors have sought to sever Chesebro from the case.
The three defendants have tried to have the case dismissed, with Troupis seeking to have the case moved to a different county, according to the Associated Press.
On Monday, Troupis filed a motion alleging that his constitutional right to be protected from government overreach was being violated because state prosecutors were relying on the criminal complaint against him rather than the special agent being used as a witness.
“[A] defendant must get a chance to test the criminal complaint,” Troupis wrote on the filing, according to the Journal Sentinel. “That”s been the law in this State for over 100 years … Against this backdrop, this Court should shut down the State’s ‘reader-witness’ if he does not have sufficient knowledge of the case.”
Hyland rejected this argument, saying the agent referring to the criminal complaint to answer questions was allowed.
Former President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election. Trump sought recounts in multiple counties, and both reaffirmed Biden’s win.
However, according to state prosecutors, Troupis, Roman, and Chesebro hatched a plan to secure signatures from a group of Republican Wisconsin officials declaring that Trump was victorious in their state. These individuals have since acknowledged that Biden was the rightful winner and claimed they were misled about how their signatures would be used.
In 2024, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul brought the forgery charges against the three men. As Law&Crime previously reported, the men face a maximum sentence of six years in state prison if convicted of the forgery charges.
The case is similar to others brought in different states, such as Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada.
The cases in the former two states have been tossed out. In Nevada, a judge ruled last month that the case against the “fake electors” can move forward.
Still, the Wisconsin case is different from the others, Lori Ringhand, a constitutional and election law professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, told local news nonprofit Wisconsin Watch.
“The prosecution isn’t of the electors,” Ringhand said. “It’s of the actual people, the very high-level Trump campaign people, attorneys who are accused of facilitating the entire scheme.”
Trump still largely maintains — more than five years later and without credible evidence — that he won the 2020 election.
