Three attorneys — one of whom is a Hillsdale College vice president — pressured state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey after the 2020 election to award Michigan’s electoral votes to former President Donald Trump rather than President Joe Biden, Shirkey told a U.S. House committee.
The Clarklake Republican told the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee in June that he was pressured to submit an alternate slate of electors during meetings with Hillsdale College Vice President Robert Norton, Grand Rapids attorney Ian Northon and Amistad Project Director Phill Kline, who is the former Kansas attorney general, according an interview transcript released Tuesday.
Shirkey said he denied the requests because it would have violated Michigan law.
“I’m not going to suggest to you that there were specific threats, but the pressure was real and the expectations were, for the most part, unambiguous,” he said in a June interview.
Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox also has said Norton informed her of plans to have Michigan Republican electors hide in the Capitol overnight from Dec. 13, 2020 through Dec. 14, 2020 so they could cast their vote for Trump in the state House — a plan Cox called “insane and inappropriate.”
Instead a group of Republican electors tried to gain entrance to the Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020 as Democratic electors met to cast their votes for Joe Biden. They were rejected by security officials since Biden had won Michigan.
Hillsdale College, a private conservative college in southern Michigan, did not respond to an email seeking comment on Norton.
Kline, who also was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee, could not be reached for comment.
Northon said Wednesday it was “unfair and inaccurate” to suggest he pressured Shirkey to award electoral votes to Biden. He argued that he merely pushed Shirkey “to investigate and force the executive branch to follow the MI election laws.”
“He was not an elector and did not have the authority or power to do so,” Northon said of Shirkey. “On behalf of my private clients, however, I showed him evidence that the election laws in Michigan were not followed.”
Shirkey said in a Wednesday message that Northon was lying. The senator told interviewers in June he believed Norton and Northon were also talking to other members of the Michigan Legislature about alternate electors as well.
“…there was a loud noise, loud, consistent cadence of, ‘We hear that the Trump folks are calling and asking for changes in the electors and you guys can do this,’” Shirkey told interviewers, before being asked if that demand was “along the lines” of what Norton, Northon and Kline were requesting.
“That is very similar to the outcome that they were asking for, yes,” Shirkey said.
Biden won Michigan by roughly 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points over Trump. Multiple court rulings, dozens of independent audits and a Republican-run Senate Oversight Committee investigation have all upheld the results of the election.
Outside of the meetings with Norton, Northon and Kline, Shirkey said he received “dozens and dozens of texts” in the lead-up to Michigan’s Dec. 14, 2020, Electoral College meeting urging the Senate majority leader to “do the right thing.”
Shirkey said he didn’t receive direct pressure from Trump in four phone calls leading up to the Electoral College meeting or during a Nov. 20, 2020, meeting with the president at the White House. But in a Jan. 3, 2021, post, the former president listed Shirkey’s cell phone number and encouraged supporters to urge Michigan lawmakers to “demand vote on decertification.”
The full transcript of Shirkey’s interview, some of which has been disclosed in other Jan. 6 committee documents, was released Tuesday by the panel. The Jan. 6 panel voted earlier in December, following an 18-month investigation, to refer recommendations to the Justice Department that Trump be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make false statements; and inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection.
Oval Office meeting
Shirkey said he and former House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, communicated ahead of the Nov. 20, 2020, meeting so they would operate in “lockstep” to emphasize they would be following Michigan law, which requires the state’s electoral votes to go to the individual who won the popular vote.
Shirkey told the panel that he didn’t recall specifically telling Trump that it would be illegal for the Legislature to award electoral votes to Trump.
“I just remember saying we were going to follow Michigan law,” he said.
Shirkey said Trump at some point in the Nov. 20, 2020 meeting was “disparaging” regarding Wayne County and the vote count operation there.
Shirkey said he told the president that he didn’t lose the state because of Wayne County, but because he underperformed in the traditionally Republican counties of Kent and Oakland, “and, more specifically, he underperformed with educated females.”
“If he had received the same number of votes as the two winning sheriffs in those two counties, he likely would have won Michigan,” Shirkey said.
The Trump campaign’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also were on a conference call for part of the meeting. Shirkey said he interrupted Giuliani’s “monologue” to ask him when he would file a lawsuit.
“I was tired of hearing all of these loosely calculated claims and allegations but no substance to back them up,” Shirkey said, adding that the unsubstantiated claims were “destroying the country” and creating “unnecessary doubt.”
Chatfield told the Jan. 6 committee in an informal interview that Giuliani told Michigan lawmakers in the meeting to “have some backbone and do the right thing.”
Shirkey and Chatfield issued a statement after the meeting indicating they would follow Michigan electoral laws and that they’d seen no information “that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan.”
Trump calls
Shirkey received a total of four calls from Trump ahead of Michigan’s electoral college vote — on Nov. 18, 21, 25 and Dec. 14, 2020 — with each call showing up with the caller ID of “Spam risk Egypt,” the senator said.
The first call was to invite Shirkey to the Nov. 20, 2020, meeting, Shirkey said.
The senator said he was in a tree stand when he received the Nov. 21 call, during which Trump thanked Shirkey for coming to the Oval Office. Shirkey said he received the Nov. 25 call while sitting at his kitchen table, but said he didn’t remember much of the call except that Trump spoke to Shirkey’s wife for a bit.
Shirkey said he could not recall the contents of the Dec. 14, 2020 call that came the same day Michigan’s Electoral College met.
When asked about the group of Trump electors who sought access to the Capitol Dec. 14, Shirkey said he knew that was “the charge or the goal” of Norton, Northon and Kline.
“I didn’t know if they were going to be successful in aggregating a group or not,” Shirkey said. “I didn’t ask. I wasn’t there.”
Staff Writers Melissa Nann Burke and Craig Mauger contributed.
