Alleged Mastermind of Trump’s ‘Fake Electors’ Plot in Georgia Accepts Plea
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Kenneth Chesebro, a Georgia co-defendant of Donald Trump, accepted a plea deal on Friday with Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors, in connection to the charges brought against him in the state’s sprawling RICO election interference case.
Chesebo pleaded guilty to a single felony count of “conspiracy to commit filing false documents,” NBC News reports. He agreed to five years probation, a $5,000 fine, community service, an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and — crucially — to testify truthfully on behalf of the prosecution against other defendants in the case.
Chesebro was charged alongside Trump and 17 others in August with participating in a widespread plan to interfere with the results of the 2020 election. The charges against Chesebro, an attorney, relate to his role in a scheme to undermine the Electoral College’s certification of Joe Biden’s election by submitting a slate of fake pro-electors.
On Thursday, fellow indicted co-conspirator Sidney Powell agreed to her own deal with prosecutors. A third co-defendant, Scott Hall, accepted a plea deal in September. Chesebro and Powell, who had asked a judge to sever his case from Powell’s trial. Judge Scott McAfee declined the motion to try Chesebro separately and scheduled his case to begin on Monday.
Trump’s attorneys had long wondered whether Chesebro would be among the most likely co-defendants to strike a plea deal. An August statement to Rolling Stone by Chesebro attorney Scott Grubman drew an eyebrow-raising distinction between Chesebro’s legal advice for the campaign and the campaign’s implementation of it, prompting speculation among the former president’s advisors.
Chesebro had studied at Harvard under liberal constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe and even attended an early fundraiser for then-presidential longshot Barack Obama, a fellow Harvard law school graduate. But the attorney drifted rightward in the mid-2010s and was introduced to the Trump campaign shortly after the election by a former Wisconsin judge with whom he had previously worked.
Chesebro may still face legal scrutiny in the election-related special counsel investigation in Washington, DC, where federal prosecutors have referred to him as “co-conspirator 5” in the indictment of former president Trump.
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