(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is refusing to back down from her unsubstantiated accusations against Republicans in her 2020 election case, even after a Democrat-appointed judge threw the charges out.
Nessel clung to her claims during a softball interview Thursday on CNN with Jake Tapper, who asked what she would say to Americans concerned that the judicial system was “protecting the bad guys.”
“I think that we ought to be very afraid for the future of democratic elections here in the United States,” Nessel said in response. “If you can’t hold these people accountable for what was clearly such a brazen attempt to overturn the will of the people in our state and in states across the country, then I’m very concerned as to whether or not we’re going to continue to be a functional democracy.”
Her comments came after Ingham County District Judge Kristen Simmons dismissed the criminal charges Nessel filed in 2023 against 16 Republicans who served as alternate electors in the certification process of the 2020 election.
The false electors knowingly signed fraudulent documents, even after it was clear that Donald Trump had lost Michigan in 2020.
This was not a mistake — it was part of a coordinated attempt to overturn an election. pic.twitter.com/TOeK0Qcslg
— Dana Nessel (@dananessel) September 11, 2025
Simmons—appointed to the bench by Democrat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—scolded prosecutors for even bringing the case while failing to show any criminal intent in the defendants’ actions.
Asked if the judge was wrong, Nessel said: “Yeah, I would reject the statements made by the judge. I think that we submitted significant evidence.”
She floated an appeal, claiming that if a jury had heard the case, they would have convicted the defendants.
“I think that’s the real travesty here, is that a jury will never even hear the facts of this case, and they’ll never hear the evidence,” she lamented.
Nessel then escalated her rhetoric, calling the Republicans’ actions “a coup.”
“The fact that no one is going to be held accountable up and down the chain of an effort to overturn an American election,” she added. “This is a coup. Let’s just call it what it is. And the fact that these are 15 more people here that are going to get away with it, I think is incredibly disturbing and should make us fear for the future of this country.”
Nessel’s case was just one in a wave of partisan prosecutions launched by Democrat attorneys general and prosecutors after the 2020 election. Those efforts included federal charges against President Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, as well as state charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Similar cases were filed in Nevada, Wisconsin and Arizona.
