Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says her office is continuing a fraud investigation into people making money off the spread of lies about the 2020 presidential election.
A Republican-led state Senate report detailed how some conservatives were fundraising on a promise to overturn the election and asked Nessel to start an investigation. Nessel says the illegality is pretty clear-cut.
“These attorneys and other people knew that this information was false," Nessel said. "But they were saying, 'give me money. And I will prove that there was election fraud'... even though they knew that none of the things they were saying were actually truthful or accurate. And so essentially they were scamming people, which is a crime.”
Nessel hasn’t directly said who her office is investigating, but attorney Matthew DePerno was cited in the Senate Oversight Committee’s report for spreading lies about the election while raising money.
DePerno has floated a run for Michigan Attorney General and as a result Nessel isn’t participating in the investigation to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
"I have built an isolation wall, and I've removed myself personally from that investigation," Nessel said, because one of the people under investigation plans to run for attorney general against her.