Trump Henchman Michael Roman—He Gets His Comeuppance in the Georgia Grand Jury Indictment August 20, 2023
August 14, 2022--“That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia.” And unlike in that song by Reba McIntire, no innocent folks, IMHO, got railroaded here (google.com). On that date, an Atlanta grand jury handed down a 98-page indictment in which Demagogue Donald was charged with thirteen charges dealing with his attempts to interfere with the results of the 2020 GA Presidential election that Democrat Joe Biden won. This indictment was the result of an investigation launched by Fulton County, (home of Atlanta), District Attorney Fani Willis. Willis’ probe began in February, 2021 after news had broken that in a recorded phone call on January 2, 2021, Trump had pressured GA Sec. of State GOPer Brad Raffensperger. Demagogue Donald had badgered Raffensperger to “find” him 11,780 votes, just enough to win GA and, therefore, take away Biden’s victory there. Willis reportedly focused on charging Trump and his associates under GA’s, RICO, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Using this GA law, Willis was able to prosecute numerous people allegedly involved in a wide-ranging criminal scheme. In addition to Trump, 18 of his followers have been charged under that statute. The GA RICO act, in fact, is broader than the similar federal RICO law often used against organized crime defendants (See latimes.com, Wire, S.,8/14/23). Many of the other indicted Trump loyalists include the “usual MAGA suspects,” Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. Many of the “Trump 19” were his former attorneys, fake electors Donald planned to put forward in Congress, local GA Trump allies, and GOP political strategists (nytimes.com/interactive, 8/14/2023). One of the key Trump officers in this scheme was Michael Roman. He has a long record of fighting for and working with Demagogue Donald. We will now look at Michael Roman.
GOP strategist Michael Roman is facing seven charges in this GA indictment. He has been charged with 2 counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree as well as 2 counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings. He is additionally charged with 1 count of violating the GA RICO Act, 1 count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, and 1 count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents (nytimes.com/interactive, 8/14/23, latimes.com, Wire, 8/14/23). Philadelphia, PA native Roman (50) was raised in the Kensington section of that city. He briefly left Philadelphia to attend the University of Miami. He dropped out of college and returned to Philadelphia where he went into politics (inquirer.com, Roebuck, J., 8/14/23, wiki).
Early in his career, Roman became a political consultant in both PA and neighboring NJ. Roman worked for State Representative John Perzel and ran Northeast Philadelphia’s 56th Ward for him, until Perzel was indicted and sent to prison (politico.com, Cook, N., 2/11/18). Roman became director of Election Day operations at the RNC, Republican National Committee (politico, Cook, 2/11/18, Hasen, R., 2012). Roman was employed by the presidential campaigns of “W” Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain. Roman additionally served as chief-of-staff to former Illinois GOP Cong. Bobby Schilling (politico, Cook, 2/11/18, Tibbetts, E., qctimes.com/news, 2019). In the 2016 presidential election, Roman was a senior advisor on the Trump campaign as that campaign’s chief poll watcher (Jacobs, B., theguardian.com, 10/18/16, Gauthier, B., salon.com, 10/19/16).
And there is more to Roman’s “illustrious” (LOL) resume. Prior to joining Donald’s presidential campaign, Roman headed up an intelligence gathering operation for Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries. The Koch family were and remain high profile and hard-right GOP mega-donors. This now defunct Koch office under Roman surveilled and gathered intelligence on liberal opponents of conservative policies (nytimes.com, Haberman, M., 4/21/16, politico.com, Vogel, K., 11/18/15). Roman dedicated a blog that he wrote, “Election Journal,” to looking at “fraud, cheating, dirty tricks, and other election news.” However, according to Irvine Law Professor, Richard Hasen, Roman’s blog appears to focus “only on incidents of Republican claims against Democrats (Hasen, R. “The Voting Wars,” 2012, books.google.com, Brennan, C., 10/24/16, “Philadelphia Inquirer,” search.proquest.com).” In GOP circles, Roman was known as a “fraud hunter” and online provocateur, which did not hurt his political advancement (See, Roebuck, inquirer.com, 8/15/23).
In the Trump White House, Roman was Director of Special Projects and Research. “Politico” called that title “a vague one that reveals almost nothing.” However, in previous administrations, an opposition researcher like Roman would usually not directly work for the White House. In prior administrations, people with Roman’s background would often work for the campaign itself or on the staff of the presidential transition team. Of course, Roman worked in an extremely paranoid/back-stabbing White House, so, IMHO, his direct White House involvement should not have been that surprising. Roman left the White House in 4/2018 (Cook, N., politico.com, 2/11/18 & 4/28/18). Roman was later appointed to serve in Trump’s 2020 reelection effort (Roebuck, inquirer.com, 8/15/23).
Again, we should not be surprised that Roman ended up in the GA “Trump 19” indictment. He was certainly a Trump foot-soldier and then some. In addition, Roman has a history of making misleading and unsubstantiated claims regarding voter fraud (apnews.com, 11/03/20, cnn.com 9/03/20, Cohen, M.). On Election Day, 2020, he posted baseless and deceptive claims of voter fraud (Brandy, Z., nbcnews.com). Roman delivered the list of fake electors for Michigan and Wisconsin to U.S. Cong. Mike Kelly (R-PA). Kelly provided them to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI). Sen. Johnson’s staff tried to get these lists of fake electors who would vote for Trump to VP Mike Pence before the January 6, 2021 count of electoral votes declared Biden the official winner of the Presidency (Cheney, K. & Wu, N., politico.com, 7/15/22). On 9/12/2022, agents of the Justice Department seized Roman’s cell phone in conjunction with 40 subpoenas issued in the investigation of the fake Trump electors (nytimes.com, 9/12/22).
And Roman did not play a minor role in organizing the fake Trump electors. He was in the thick of the fake electors anti-democracy scam. According to communications that surfaced in 2022 during the investigation by the congressional committee looking into the January 6, 2021 attack, Roman handled much of the legwork around organizing the seven slates of fake Trump electors purporting to represent the electoral votes, from battleground states, including PA (Roebuck, J., inquirer.com, 8/15/23). In the run-up to the 2020 vote, Roman repeatedly cast doubt on social media on the integrity of the election results. In a blog post he co-authored, Roman accused Democrats of organizing pandemic-era expansions to expand mail voting (See inquirer.com, Roebuck, 8/15/23).
Although the GA indictment of Roman is the first time that he has been charged with a crime in connection with Trump’s 2020 campaign, Roman’s work for Demagogue Donald has been previously well documented. In an interview with the January 6 congressional investigating committee, Roman described his role with the Trump campaign as “maintaining tracking contacts with state officials and tracking voting legislation before the election.” In a 2022 deposition, Roman indicated that he was looking “to identify any illegal ballots” as part of his job, the GOP’s obsession (See Roebuck, inquirer.com). After the 11/2020 election Roman took on more responsibility. According to emails obtained by Congress, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tapped Roman as “the lead” for organizing the slates of fake Trump electors. The House Jan. 6 Committee report also describes Roman as playing a role in the delivery of a fake elector certificate from Wisconsin to Congress (Roebuck, inquirer.com, 8/15/23).
Arrest warrants were issued for all the GA defendants including Roman. However, Prosecutor Willis is allowing them to voluntarily surrender by noon on August 25, 2023 (latimes.com, Wire, S., 8/15/23). Most GOPers in and outside Congress have ignored Trump’s horrible misdeeds. So far, the legal system has played the key role in uncovering Trump’s awful attempts to attack our democracy. Trump, Roman, and their fellow defendants will go to trial and get verdicts from juries of their peers. Upholding fair elections constitutes a keystone of our democracy.