Trump Attorney Pleads Guilty In Georgia Case – Former Donald Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a legal memo he wrote for former President Donald Trump suggesting he could send an alternate slate of electors to Congress.
Chesebro was one of 18 defendants including the former president indicted in August as part of Fulton County, Ga. D.A. Fani Willis’s indictment under Georgia’s RICO law.
Chesebro helped create slates of alternate electors in Georgia and in other states won by Joe Biden.
He pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of conspiracy and received a sentence of five years of probation.
Willis contends that the scheme was illegal. Chesebro originally was charged with seven felonies, including a single charge under the RICO law. He agreed to testify against the other defendants including Trump as part of the deal with the court.
Chesebro agreed to hand over documents in his possession related to the case.
Second Plea Deal in a Row
The New York Times noted that this, combined with a plea deal by lawyer Sidney Powell, who once vowed to “release the Kraken” to prove that the election had been stolen from Trump, signed a plea agreement Thursday.
“The two consecutive plea deals spell only bad news for Mr. Trump and his 15 remaining co-defendants, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff,” The New York Times reported. “Emails obtained by The New York Times show that Mr. Chesebro was considering not only the legality of various maneuvers related to the electors’ scheme in the weeks after the election but also their political ramifications, potentially undercutting arguments that he was merely offering legal advice. One email chain included messages from John Eastman, another conservative lawyer who has been charged in the Georgia case.”
Prosecutors previously announced in court that they had offered a plea deal to Chesebro under which he would plead guilty to a single racketeering charge and lose his law license.
Chesebro’s name appears on several emails that factor into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump in connection with his effort to overturn the 2020 election on the federal level. Smith’s prosecutors could use Chesebro’s testimony in the state case to bring federal charges against him.
His attorney, Scott R. Grubman, told The New York Times that the scenario was unlikely.
“When you’re convicted or plead guilty, what’s supposed to happen is that that’s it,” he said. ”And so I really hope Jack Smith will, seriously, take those obligations seriously.”
Prosecutors Twisted Arms to Get Plea Deals
Trump’s lead lawyer in the case, Steven H. Sadow, dismissed the significance of the guilty plea noting that it was likely influenced by the fact that he faced a potential lengthy prison sentence.
“However,” Sadow stated, “it is very important for everyone to note that the RICO charge and every other count was dismissed. Once again, I fully expect that truthful testimony would be favorable to my defense strategy.”
Federalist columnist Margot Cleveland similarly noted that Powell had her back against a wall.
“… Willis basically extorted a guilty plea from Powell by charging her with seven serious felonies, including a RICO conspiracy count, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, and one count each of conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state,” Cleveland writes. “With a jury culled from deep-blue Fulton County, the risk of a conviction on even one of the felony counts, and the consequential loss of her law license, would be just too great of a chance for any defendant to take — especially when the plea only involved misdemeanors that would be discharged from Powell’s record following probation. Under these circumstances, it would have been lunacy for Powell to have rejected the plea offer.”
Cleveland continues, “But what reason would Willis have to offer such a favorable deal? None, if Willis truly believed Powell committed the felonies for which she was charged and Willis had the evidence to prove them. After all, it is not as if Powell’s testimony is needed to establish the other crimes charged against the other defendants.”
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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