One of the 16 Republicans accused of participating in a scheme in Michigan to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election said in an interview with the state attorney general’s office that he was “betrayed” by government officials who took advantage of his ignorance as a first-time elector, according to The New York Times. James Renner is the only defendant who has had his charges dropped after he agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Renner, 77, told Dana Nessel’s office that he only realized his alleged wrongdoing when he read over testimony from the United States House’s probe into the Jan. 6 attack. “I can’t overemphasize… how upset I was that the legitimate process had not been followed,” he said in the interview. “I felt that I had been walked into a situation that I shouldn’t have ever been involved in.” Renner explained that he was asked to fill in as an elector in December 2020 when two Michigan officials dropped out days before. He asserted that he “knew nothing about the electoral process” and “was accepting the individuals that were in authority” knew “what they were talking about.”
