Donald Trump’s chances of being convicted in the federal 2020 election subversion case may have increased after his top election lawyer took a plea deal in the 2020 election case in Fulton county and admitted that the effort to create fake slates of electors was fraudulent.
The immediate consequence of Kenneth Chesebro’s plea deal is that he could incriminate the former president in Georgia, given one of his plea conditions involved testifying truthfully against other defendants.
But Chesebro could also separately incriminate Trump in the federal criminal case in Washington, should the special counsel Jack Smith use his new admission to bolster the case that Trump conspired to defraud the United States in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell also took a plea deal last week, underscoring the remarkable run of victories for the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who has separately defeated repeated efforts from multiple Trump allies to transfer their criminal cases to federal court.
But while Powell’s plea agreement was particularly notable, in large part due to her personal notoriety and her infamous pitch to Trump at an explosive White House meeting to have the military seize voting machines, the development with Chesebro could be more legally significant.
The Chesebro-devised fake electors scheme ultimately became the central part of the strategy pursued by Trump and his allies to stop or delay the January 6 congressional certification of the election results.
Trump’s eventual plan involved trying to use the existence of the fake electors to pressure his vice-president, Mike Pence, to declare at the certification that the election results in battleground states that Trump actually lost remained in doubt, and could therefore not be counted.
At issue for Trump is that Chesebro’s plea deal in Fulton county required him to admit guilt to count 15 in the indictment – that Trump and Chesebro and others violated the law in filing the fake electors certificate – and thereby affirm that the fake electors were indeed fraudulent.
The plea deal also required Chesebro to tape a statement for Fulton county prosecutors, evidence that appears to have been sufficiently helpful in proving their cases against the other co-defendants that he was granted an arrangement under which he faced no jail term.
It remains unclear how Chesebro’s plea is being viewed by the special counsel, and even if he were subpoenaed to testify in Washington, Chesebro could assert his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.
But if Chesebro does testify in Georgia, it could be a boon for the special counsel who would have the ability to use that testimony in their case, and have Chesebro testify about the facts contained within the statements. The contents of the statement are not public, but are almost certain to touch on the fake electors scheme.
In the 45-page federal 2020 election indictment, the conspiracy to defraud the United States was described as the use of dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair the counting and certification of the election results.
The admission from Chesebro that the slates, which are being alleged as the vehicle used to commit the conspiracy, were fraudulent could bolster the charge that Trump and his allies fundamentally did use deceit to stop Congress from certifying the election results.
After Chesebro took the plea deal, Trump’s lead lawyer told reporters that his “truthful testimony” would help the former president. “It appears to me that the guilty plea to count 15 of the Fulton county indictment was the result of pressure by Fani Willis and her team and the prosecution’s looming threat of prison time,” Steve Sadow said.
The lawyer for Chesebro also downplayed his admission. “While Mr Chesebro did take responsibility for conspiracy to commit filing false documents, I want to make something clear: he did not implicate anyone else. He implicated himself in that particular charge,” Scott Grubman said in an interview on MSNBC.
But the reality for Chesebro is that he might have little option but to become a cooperating witness against Trump in the federal case. Chesebro was identified as unindicted co-conspirator five in the federal indictment, and prosecutors could pressure him with charges because of his guilty plea.
