Rachel Maddow shares reporting from Politico of Republicans in Michigan and Arizona creating fake elector letters pretending to certify Donald Trump and Mike Pence the winners of their states even though Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won them both, with the Michigan letter markedly similar to a previously reported forged Wisconsin letter.

Wisconsin Republicans did not respond well to the state's election results in November 2020, when Donald Trump narrowly lost the state. In fact, after the state Supreme Court affirmed President Joe Biden's victory in Wisconsin, and it came time for state officials to complete the process, some Republicans went in an especially ridiculous direction.

It was on Dec. 14, 2020, when Wisconsin electors met in the state capitol for an official ceremony in which the state formally assigned its electors for the electoral college. There wasn't anything unusual about this: On the same day, every state did this, with Trump electors being assigned in states won by the GOP ticket, and Biden electors being assigned in states won by the Democratic ticket.

But as we discussed a couple of weeks ago, the process in the Badger State became a little messier: While the actual electors were being assigned inside the state capitol in Madison, a group of Wisconsin Republicans quietly held a separate, fake ceremony — in the same capitol, at the same time — to cast electoral votes for Trump, despite his defeat in the state.

They then proceeded to forge the official paperwork and sent it to, among others, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Archivist, as if the materials were legitimate. They were not.

As Rachel noted on last night's show, that's an important controversy in its own right, but what w e didn't know until yesterday was that Wisconsin wasn't alone.

Politico reported:

"As Trump's team pushed its discredited voter fraud narrative, the National Archives received forged certificates of ascertainment declaring him and then-Vice President Mike Pence the winners of both Michigan and Arizona and their electors after the 2020 election. Public records requests show the secretaries of state for those states sent those certificates to the Jan. 6 panel, along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents."

I have three questions.

First, were these efforts legal? Groups of Republicans in three states signed their names to forged documents, pretended they were real, and sent them to government agencies. I'm not an attorney and can't speak with any authority on whether this constituted fraud, but I'll be eager to learn what legal experts have to say about the schemes.

Second, did these GOP groups have any outside help? The materials out of Wisconsin and Michigan, for example, were practically identical, with matching formatting and fonts. Was this an amazing coincidence or was there some kind of behind-the-scenes coordination? If so, who played an organizing role?

And third, exactly how many states featured pro-Trump Republicans creating forged election materials? We previously knew of one; now we know of three.

Cyber Ninjas, you'll recall, is the firm that Arizona Senate Republicans retained to "audit" the results of the 2020 election in Maricopa County for supposed voter fraud. Cyber Ninjas had "zero election experience prior to this year," but its CEO, Doug Logan, is a rabid Trump supporter who repeatedly spread baseless lies and conspiracy theories (the only qualifications Arizona Republicans needed).

Cyber Ninjas incurred $2 million in debt as a result of the "audit." Despite this massive expense--and despite its obvious bias--ultimately the firm was unable to identify even one single instance of actual voter fraud. It contented itself with an "audit" report criticizing Maricopa County's practices anyway, replete with claims that were "either misleading, inaccurate or false."

Cyber Ninjas has refused to release records relating to its "audit," and the newspaper The Arizona Republic took the firm to court over it. On August 24, 2021, Cyber Ninjas lost, and the court ordered it to release its documents and communications to The Arizona Republic. It continued to fight instead, so on January 6, 2022, the court held the firm in contempt and ordered it to pay daily fines of $50,000 until it complied with court orders.

They’re wasting time and money on the audit for no reason, but they’re certainly not gonna admit defeat if and when the audit doesn’t change anything. It might change a handful of votes, and they’ll hold that up as “proof” that the whole election was rigged; if THESE votes weren’t counted correctly, then who’s to say that OTHER votes weren’t counted correctly? They’ll never flip the county, but that’s not their goal. Their goal is to sow the seeds of doubt to justify Republican efforts to change the laws and prevent people from voting. Biden won, they know it, they will never admit they know it, and they’ll insist to their dying days that even though their own audit shows he got more votes than Trump that somehow he still lost. They won’t just be embarrassed and bury the results that prove Biden won, they’ll look at the same numbers we’re all looking at and somehow come to a nonsensical conclusion.

The judge already ordered them to reimburse the defendants (question is the $$ amount, defendants are looking for something around $180k), along with ordering them to attend 6 hours of training in both pleading court cases and in Michigan election law, and ordered they must be referred to the relevant authorities for potential disbarment...