Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The Associated Press has the story:
Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleads guilty over efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in GA
Newslooks- ATLANTA (AP)
Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.
Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts.
The two guilty pleas — along with a third for a bail bondsman last month — are major victories for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who obtained the indictment in August. They allow her to avoid a lengthy trial of just two defendants — which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy — and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.
Chesebro was initially charged with felony racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The indictment alleges Chesebro coordinated and executed a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
For prosecutors, the plea deal assures that Chesebro publicly accepts responsibility for his conduct in the case and removes the uncertainty of a trial by a jury of his peers. It also compels him to testify about communications he had with Trump’s campaign lawyers and close associates, including co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump attorney.
Jury selection had been set to start Friday for the trial of Powell and Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Once Powell pleaded guilty, Chesebro had been set to continue to trial on his own.
As part of Powell’s deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.
A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.
All of the other defendants, including Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege that Chesebro unlawfully conspired with Trump and lawyers associated with his campaign to have the group of Georgia Republicans sign the false elector certificate and to submit it to various federal authorities. He also communicated with Trump campaign lawyers and Republican leaders in other swing states won by Biden to get those states to submit false slates of electors as well, prosecutors alleged.
That included writing memos advocating for Republicans in those states to meet and cast electoral votes for Trump and providing detailed instructions for how the process should be carried out. In an email to Giuliani, he outlined strategies to disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, during which electoral votes were to be certified. He wrote that those strategies were “preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms.”
TRUMP WILL LOOM LARGE OVER THE TRIAL
There’s little doubt that the Republican former president will be a central figure in the proceedings, even though he’s not expected to be there.
After all, the indictment alleges Chesebro and the rest of the defendants “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”
As the defense and prosecution weigh potential jurors, it’s likely they will try to figure out as much as they can about their feelings about Trump, their political leanings and their opinions about baseless claims that the 2020 election was marred by fraud and stolen from Trump.
CHESEBRO WILL BE TRIED BY HIMSELF
Until Thursday morning, Chesebro was set to go on trial alongside Powell after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Under Georgia law, a defendant who files a demand for a speedy trial has a right to have a trial begin within the court term when the demand is filed or in the next court term. That meant the trial had to start by Nov. 5.
Powell agreed to a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to six misdemeanor counts. As part of the deal, she must testify truthfully if she is called as a witness at any future trials related to the case. She was also sentenced to probation and ordered to pay a fine.
THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CHESEBRO
All the defendants are accused of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, by participating in a wide-ranging scheme to keep Trump in power despite his election loss.
Chesebro is also accused of working on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
The indictment says Chesebro wrote memos outlining that plan, including one that “provides detailed, state-specific instructions” for how Trump elector nominees in swing states where Trump had lost could meet to cast votes for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020.
In an email sent a few days before those meetings were to happen, Chesebro wrote that “the purpose of having the electoral votes sent in to Congress is to provide the opportunity to debate the election irregularities in Congress and to keep alive the possibility that votes could be flipped to Trump.”
In an email to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump lawyer, he outlined strategies to disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, during which electoral votes were to be certified for Democrat Joe Biden, prosecutors said. He wrote that those strategies were “preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms.”
Besides the racketeering charge, he faces six felony conspiracy counts related to the elector plan.
CHESEBRO’S DEFENSE
Chesebro’s attorneys do not dispute that he drafted the legal memos and emails at issue, but they have said every action he took was justified under Georgia and federal law. He is a constitutional law expert who was working as a lawyer to research and find precedents to support a legal opinion that he provided to the Trump campaign, they argued in court filings.
“Nothing about Mr. Chesebro’s conduct falls outside the bounds of what lawyers do on a daily basis; researching the law in order to find solutions that address their clients particularized needs,” they wrote in one filing.
His lawyers tried to get the judge to bar prosecutors from using Chesebro’s memos and emails at trial, arguing that they were protected by attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine. But the judge rejected those arguments.
THE JURY SELECTION PROCESS
The court summoned 450 prospective jurors to appear at the courthouse in downtown Atlanta on Friday. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee and lawyers for each side introduced themselves, the prospective jurors were sworn in, a prosecutor summarized the indictment and the judge explained how jury service works. Then the prospective jurors began filling out an extensive questionnaire formulated by prosecutors, defense attorneys and McAfee. The completed questionnaires were to be scanned into a shared drive accessible to the lawyers.
On Monday, prospective jurors will be called in groups of 14 for individual questioning. For each group, the judge will ask questions to determine whether anyone has qualifying hardships that would keep them from being able to serve as a juror. Then the prosecution and the defense attorneys will have one hour per group of 14 prospective jurors to ask questions.
To ensure there are enough potential jurors, McAfee has requested that another 450 people be brought in on Oct. 27 to fill out questionnaires.
In an order in September, McAfee wrote that he will try to have the jury seated and sworn in by Nov. 3, “to eliminate any doubts that the statutory speedy trial deadline has been met.”
THE TRIAL LENGTH
Prosecutors have said that since the case was brought under the RICO law, they intend to prove the entire alleged conspiracy, using all the same witnesses and evidence in any trial in the case. They said at a hearing last month that they estimate a trial would take four months and that they would call more than 150 witnesses.
McAfee recently said he would tell prospective jurors during jury selection that it’s likely to take up to five months.
