Five fake electoral vote certificates purporting to show that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential contest in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin were submitted to Congress as part of the effort to undermine Joe Biden’s election. Groups in two other states – New Mexico and Pennsylvania – submitted alternative electoral vote certificates in case legal challenges invalidated Biden’s wins there.

American Oversight, a government watchdog outlet, obtained and published the phony certificates last March. On Tuesday night, MSBNC’s Rachel Maddow did a deep dive on the bogus documents (watch above). She underscored their near identical language and formatting – evidence that the groups that submitted the documents either coordinated with each other or received help from the same outside entity.

Maddow also reported that Jeffery Clark, the former Department of Justice official who pushed his bosses to pursue unproven allegations of voter fraud, referenced the fake certificates in a draft letter he was planning on sending to swing states urging them to delay certifying Biden’s election. In response to subpoena from the House committee probing the events culminating in the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, Clark has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Earlier this week, POLITICO reported that Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs “took legal action against at least one of the groups who sent in the fake documents, sending a cease and desist letter to a pro-Trump “sovereign citizen” group telling them to stop using the state seal and referring the matter to the state attorney general.”

“By affixing the state seal to documents containing false and misleading information about the results of Arizona’s November 3, 2020 General Election, you undermine the confidence in our democratic institutions,” Hobbs wrote to one of the pro-Trump groups.

Hobbs and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson recently met with the House panel probing January 6th.

Hobbs’ spokesperson C. Murphy Hebert told POLITICO, “They mostly discussed election administration in Arizona, the 2020 elections, threats/harassment directed toward the office, and the Cyber Ninja’s partisan ballot review.”