Law Forward Files a Grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation Against Attorney James Troupis For His Role in the Fake Electors Scheme

On the eve of former Trump Campaign lawyer Jim Troupis’s initial criminal court appearance, Law Forward has filed a formal grievance with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR), calling for an investigation of his conduct devising and implementing the fake-elector scheme following the 2020 Presidential election. This latest step seeks accountability for Troupis’s actions, which, the grievance alleges, represent a direct violation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys.

“Our democracy depends on attorneys adhering to their ethical obligations,” said Jeff Mandell, President and General Counsel of Law Forward. “Troupis violated those obligations by advancing falsehoods, enabling fraud, and undermining the rule of law. This grievance seeks to hold him accountable and ensure that such abuses of the legal profession are never repeated.”

The fraudulent elector scheme, developed and advanced by Troupis and his associate, Ken Chesebro, between November 2020 and February 2021, was part of a coordinated effort to subvert the will of the voters in Wisconsin and other states. Despite the certified election results affirming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris‘s victory in the 2020 presidential election, these attorneys ensured Republican electors in Wisconsin and six other states cast false electoral votes for Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

This grievance follows evidence uncovered during litigation in Penebaker v. Hitt, in which Law Forward represented plaintiffs challenging the actions of Troupis, Chesebro, and Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors. As part of the settlements in that case, documents were obtained and published that further exposed the active role played by Troupis and Chesebro in Wisconsin and beyond. Those documents reveal a strategy designed to create “delay” and “chaos” in order to disrupt the lawful certification of the 2020 election results and influence decision-makers, including the U.S. Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence, to overturn the outcome.

Troupis, a seasoned attorney and former Dane County Circuit Court judge, leveraged his legal expertise in leading the Trump Campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Despite his prior experience with and knowledge of professional ethics, Troupis not only actively participated in the scheme to submit fraudulent electoral votes but also supervised the work of attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who was instrumental in crafting and implementing the plan. Since Chesebro is not licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, Troupis bore direct responsibility for ensuring Chesebro’s actions adhered to Wisconsin’s rules of professional conduct. As the grievance details, Troupis failed to do this, again and again.

“Troupis was the quarterback of a calculated scheme to overturn a presidential election—an extraordinary abuse of legal expertise aimed at undermining our democracy, ” said Scott Thompson, Staff Attorney for Law Forward. “Pursuing accountability today sends a clear message to anyone who might consider disrupting the rule of law in the future.”

The grievance asks the OLR to investigate Troupis’s conduct and file a disciplinary complaint to address violations, including dishonesty, deceit, and improper influence, which breach the core principles of Wisconsin’s professional ethics rules.

This is on top of a still open OLR grievance filed against Andrew Hitt in 2021, stemming from his involvement in the scheme. That OLR grievance remains active.

For a full timeline of the Fake Electors Scheme from the documents Law Forward and co-counsel at ICAP discovered from the civil litigation, click here. For a full linked appendix of the grievance click here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.