A second Donald Trump campaign lawyer reached a plea deal on Friday that would see him testify for the prosecution in the case alleging that the former US president led a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Kenneth Chesebro, 62, was indicted on racketeering and other charges in the southern state in August along with Trump and 17 other codefendants.
Chesebro was accused of orchestrating a scheme to submit a slate of fake electors to Congress in a bid to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.
Jury selection for his trial began on Friday at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, but was abruptly halted after Chesebro entered into a surprise last-minute plea deal with prosecutors.
Chesebro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, faced seven charges including racketeering — a felony that carries jail time — conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to file false documents.
He pleaded guilty to the single charge of conspiracy to file false documents in exchange for a sentence of five years probation, $5,000 in restitution and 100 hours of community service.
“You are to testify truthfully in any other proceedings in this case against any and all other codefendants,” Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee added at the plea hearing.
Chesebro’s guilty plea came one day after another former Trump campaign attorney, Sidney Powell, also entered into a plea deal with prosecutors that would see her testify at the upcoming trials of other codefendants.
Powell, 68, was a vocal Trump supporter who peddled outlandish conspiracy theories about voting machines allegedly designed in Venezuela under the late Hugo Chavez that “flipped” Trump votes to Biden votes.
Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties and was sentenced to six years of probation.
– ‘Dominos are starting to fall’ –
Legal analysts said the plea deals are a potential blow to Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“The dominos are starting to fall,” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor. “Trump is planning to blame the attorneys, but now they’ll be prosecution witnesses pointing the finger at him.”
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said Chesebro’s testimony could be “even more damaging to Trump than Powell’s” since he was apparently “central to the election fraud conspiracy in Georgia.”
The plea deals also mean Trump and his attorneys will no longer be able to have a preview of the evidence and strategy that prosecutors may use at his own eventual trial.
Chesebro and Powell had been the only two of the 19 codefendants in the Georgia case to invoke their right to a speedy trial. A trial date has not been set yet for the 77-year-old Trump and the others.
– ‘Influence the outcome’ –
According to the Georgia indictment, Trump met with Powell, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others at the White House on December 18, 2020, several weeks before the end of his term, and discussed “strategies and theories intended to influence the outcome” of the election.
Among the moves allegedly considered but eventually abandoned was naming Powell as special counsel “to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Chesebro is the third codefendant in the Georgia case to enter a guilty plea.
Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty last month to five counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties.
Others indicted in Georgia include Giuliani, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, John Eastman, a constitutional lawyer, and Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official.
Trump also faces federal charges for his efforts to upend the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by his supporters. He is to go on trial in that case in Washington in March 2024.
– Chris Lefkow
