Unmasking the Co-Conspirators in Trump’s Georgia Indictment

Donald Trump’s fourth indictment is, on almost every level, the most sprawling charging document against the former president to date, laying out 41 felony counts across 19 named defendants—along with 30 other unindicted, unnamed co-conspirators.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis intends to bring all 19 named defendants to trial simultaneously, building her case with RICO statutes usually reserved for organized crime syndicates like the mafia or street gangs.

But that’s precisely Willis’ point: Collectively, Trump and these co-conspirators comprised a “criminal organization”—or, for purposes of Georgia law, a criminal “enterprise” when they sought to overturn the election results in Georgia.

The Daily Beast has cross-referenced the Fulton County indictment with available documents—like the House Jan. 6 committee’s trove of evidence, other Trump indictments, and contemporaneous news reports—to potentially identify up to 21 of the 30 anonymous co-conspirators.

It is notable that Willis did not charge any of these individuals, suggesting they may not have committed a crime or been willing participants in the alleged conspiracy.

While it’s impossible to say at times that a certain person is definitively this individual described in the indictment, some of the unindicted co-conspirators confirmed to The Daily Beast that they were, in fact, that person.

For others, we can only lay out why the evidence strongly suggests it is them.

In the case of the fake electors, a number of the 16 members of the Georgia slate are indistinguishable from each other. We have noted that in the following list.

But here is our best attempt at identifying the 30 unnamed co-conspirators in this latest indictment:

Individual 1: Appears to be Tom Fitton

Fitton, the Trump-enamored leader of Judicial Watch, was first identified by Just Security co-editor-in-chief Ryan Goodman as the likely identity of “Individual 1.”

Here’s how the indictment describes Individual 1, in the very first overt act of the conspiracy:

On or about the 4th day of November 2020, DONALD JOHN TRUMP made a nationally televised speech falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election. Approximately four days earlier, on or about October 31, 2020, DONALD JOHN TRUMP discussed a draft speech with unindicted co-conspirator Individual l, whose identity is known to the Grand Jury, that falsely declared victory and falsely claimed voter fraud. The speech was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

That matches material the Jan. 6 congressional committee released last year, revealing that Fitton had written a draft speech and emailed it to Trump via two aides on Oct. 31, noting he had recently discussed the draft with the then-president.

“Dear Mr. President,” the email begins. “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

The proposed speech, written before Election Day, goes on to make the false claims described in the indictment. It declares victory, predicting that “partisans will try to overturn today’s lawful election results” by (lawfully) counting mail-in ballots that arrived after Nov. 3. The draft also claims, wrongly, that such tabulation is “lawless, invites massive voter fraud, undermines our democracy, and could dishonestly cancel the votes of tens of millions of Americans.” In a twist of prescient irony, Fitton wrote that Trump will seek legal remedies “to make sure this election is not stolen” and will defend the country “from any electoral coup.”

While we can’t say Fitton was the only person on Oct. 31 to send Trump a victory speech as described in the indictment, Fitton’s actions fit the description.

Fitton did not return multiple requests for comment, via email, phone, and text message. A spokesperson at his watchdog group, Judicial Watch, confirmed his email address but declined to alert Fitton to the comment request.

Individual 2: Unknown, but a fake elector

The charging document indicates that Individual 2—one of the most engaged alleged co-conspirators—is a fake elector, appearing alongside other criminally charged fake electors in the counts of impersonating a public officer. Individual 2, notably, also allegedly received “an approximately 83-second-long voicemail message” from Giuliani less than two weeks after the election, in which the former New York City mayor made statements about election fraud, the document says.

While The Daily Beast is able to narrow down Individual 2 to one of the 16 fake electors—and further narrow it down to 11 of those electors who aren’t otherwise identifiable—we can’t specify this person’s identity any further.

Individual 3: Appears to be Boris Epshteyn

The indictment describes Individual 3 as an attendee at Rudy Giuliani’s infamous Nov. 18 hair-dye and sweat-streaked press conference, where he was joined onstage by legal advisers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell. Epshteyn, a senior Trump campaign aide and legal adviser, was part of that press conference.

While numerous Republican operatives attended that conference, only one of them was also, as the indictment states, on a Dec. 23 email from Trump insurrection lawyer John Eastman with the subject line “FW: Draft 2, with edits.”

In that email, as quoted in the indictment, Eastman admits reluctance to bring constitutional questions about the Electoral Count Act before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which “could invite counter views that we do not believe should constrain Pence.”

“Better for them just to act boldly and be challenged, since the challenge would likely lead to the Court denying review on nonjusticiable political question grounds,” Eastman concludes.

The facts strongly suggest Individual 3 is Epshteyn, according to that email, which was released by the Jan. 6 committee. (The email also appeared as an exhibit in the 2022 lawsuit Eastman filed against the committee, to challenge the release of such material.)

Epshteyn declined to comment.

Individual 4: Robert Sinners

Individual 4 is one of the most salient alleged co-conspirators in the entire indictment, appearing in more than a dozen separate overt acts. But that alleged co-conspirator, Robert Sinners, the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations chief, has since taken a post with an institutional bulwark that brooked some of the most severe abuse and violent threats while holding the Trump team’s anti-democratic efforts at bay—the office of Georgia’s GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Still, Sinners is readily identifiable from the indictment. According to the document, indicted co-conspirator David Shafer— the former chair of the Georgia GOP—sent “Individual 4” an email on Nov. 20. That email, according to the indictment, “stated that indicted Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of [Trump adviser] David Bossie,” and asked Individual 4 to contact Hall and “help him as needed.”

CNN first reported the email in an exclusive last October, which revealed that Hall had testified before the Fulton County grand jury. The email’s recipient? Robert Sinners.

The Daily Beast confirmed that Sinners is Individual 4 through a person with direct knowledge of his role in the indictment.

Individuals 5 and 6: Bernie Kerik (5), and appears to be Phil Waldron (6)

Kerik—the longtime Giuliani confidant, former NYPD Commissioner, and back-door agent during the 2020 election challenges—is best discussed with Waldron, a Texas-based fringe conspiracy theorist whose PowerPoint roadmap to overturning the election results infamously featured detours through the governments of China and Venezuela.

The indictment puts Individuals 5 and 6 in a few places at the same time. One of them was at a Nov. 25 White House meeting, immediately after a Giuliani-led Gettysburg presentation. In addition to co-conspirators 5 and 6, the indictment says, that meeting featured indicted co-conspirators Giuliani, Ellis, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump, who discussed holding a special session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly with a group of lawmakers from that state.

Waldron—the supposed Individual 6—told The Washington Post that he attended the Nov. 25 meeting. He made the same claim separately to Vice, telling the outlet that Trump said his testimony in Pennsylvania earlier that day “was great.” And Kerik—Individual 5—confirmed his presence at this same White House meeting in an interview with the Jan. 6 committee. Star Jan. 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson’s Sept. 15, 2022, also corroborates their presence that day, alongside Meadows.

The indictment then puts Individuals 5 and 6 together during similar back-to-back presentations that Giuliani’s team made days later to a group of Arizona GOP lawmakers. Kerik describes those meetings in detail to the Jan. 6 committee, matching details in the indictment.

While the two people may at this point seem interchangeable, the indictment also presents them in isolation.

For instance, on Dec. 7, Trump asked campaign aide Bill White for information, “including contact information for Majority Leader of the Georgia Senate Mike Dugan and President Pro Tempore of the Georgia Senate Butch Miller.” The next day, the document says, White emailed that information to Giuliani, Individual 5, and others.

The Jan. 6 committee acquired that email, which includes Kerik as a recipient, but not Waldron or anyone else who could match the indictment’s other descriptions of Individual 5’s actions and whereabouts. (Kerik has reportedly recently begun cooperating with special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation, though he portrayed his interview as centered primarily on campaign fundraising schemes.)

Kerik’s lawyer, former Trumpworld attorney Timothy Parlatore, walked through these steps with The Daily Beast, and confirmed Kerik was Individual 5.

“Fani Willis needs to go back to law school and research the definition of a co-conspirator,” Parlatore said, characterizing the complaint as “overblown.”

“What Fani Willis has done here is set herself up for a fight over the structure of the indictment before you even get to the merits,” he said, referencing the sprawl of the case and its 19 defendants as juxtaposed against her stated six-month trial timeline.

The indictment also presents Individual 6 in a separate context.

On Dec. 21, the document says, Powell emailed the chief operations officer of legal technology firm SullivanStrickler LLC, demanding that she “receive a copy of all data,” sent to her along with three other unindicted co-conspirators, including Individual 6. That description is an exact match for an email included in an August 2022 Washington Post report, in which ​​Powell asks the same COO—using the same language—that “I and Phil Waldron and Todd and Conan will receive a copy of all data immediately.”

Those other names—Todd and Conan—appear in Jan. 6 interviews as near-constant companions of Waldron. Kerik’s interview identifies them as Todd Sanders and Conan Hayes, the latter being a former professional surfer and co-founder of skatewear brand RVCA. That would make those two men Individuals 21 and 22 in the indictment.

The Daily Beast reached out to Waldron, Sanders, and Hayes, but did not receive a reply.

Individual 7: Unknown

Individual 8: Appears to be Burt Jones

Jones, a state senator at the time who is now Georgia’s lieutenant governor, was one of the state’s 16 fake electors.

The indictment makes it easy to identify Individual 8, who is portrayed as a central figure in the alleged fake elector scheme, appearing in 11 overt acts. But the glaring tip that Willis included might not sit well with the purportedly anonymous Individual 8. Last year, Jones successfully barred the DA from publicly naming him in connection with the grand jury probe.

But Jones is readily identifiable from a Dec. 7 tweet quoted in the indictment, which Giuliani later shared.

“Georgia Patriot Call to Action: today is the day we need you to call your state Senate & House Reps & ask them to sign the petition for a special session,” the tweet reads. “We must have free & fair elections in GA & this is our only path to ensuring every legal vote is counted. @realDonaldTrump.”

Jones is the author of that original tweet. But he might not take kindly to being so transparently outed.

Last July, Jones convinced the judge overseeing the investigation—Robert McBurney—to disqualify Willis from targeting him, citing a conflict of interest after she hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race that year. As part of that ruling, McBurney barred the DA from “publicly categorizing [Jones] as a subject or target (or anything else) of the grand jury’s investigation.” The court did allow Willis to continue questioning witnesses about Jones’ alleged role, leaving any possible charging decisions to a different prosecutor, “as determined by the Attorney General.”

Jones didn’t return a request for comment. Shortly after The Daily Beast reached out, however, Jones attacked Willis on Twitter, accusing her of pursuing “political vendettas of the past” and spending “millions of taxpayer dollars” on the sprawling criminal investigation for “the sole purpose of furthering her own political career.”

Individual 9: Appears to be Joseph Brannan

Brannan, a former Georgia GOP treasurer, was one of the 16 fake electors. But unlike most of the other fake electors, Brannan appears distinguishable.

Individual 9 is alleged in the indictment to have been on the receiving end of a Dec. 10 email from indicted pro-Trump lawyer Ken Chesebro, who is said to also be unindicted co-conspirator 5 in Smith’s federal indictment. The Jan. 6 committee’s investigation swept up that email, which shows, as the indictment alleges, Chesebro reaching out on behalf of the Trump campaign “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

The email’s recipients match the indictment’s description, featuring indicted former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer along with “unindicted co-conspirator Individual 9.” While the email has two other recipients, both of them are women; the indictment reveals in the description of another overt act—Act 74—that Individual 9 is a male, leaving Brannan’s “treasurer@gagop.com” as the only remaining email address.

Brannan didn’t respond to a comment request.

Individuals 10-19: Fake electors

Like Individual 2, The Daily Beast has not been able to confirm the specific identities of Individuals 10-19.

The indictment charges a total of 16 people with fake elector charges, which matches the number of electors on the alternate slate.

Three of those people are charged and named—Cathleen Alston Latham, Shawn Still, and state GOP chair David Shafer. Two of the fake electors—Jones and Brannan (Individuals 8 and 9)—are unindicted but distinguishable through other actions they took that are memorialized in the indictment.

That leaves 11 names from the full slate. One is Individual 2; the others fall somewhere among Individuals 10-19, according to the indictment. And because the fake electors have been named, those 11 unindicted conspirators are James “Ken” Carroll, Vikki Townsend Consiglio, Carolyn Hall Fisher, Gloria Kay Godwin; David G. Hanna; Mark W. Hennessy; Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, and C.B. Yadav. At least eight of them received immunity in the investigation, the Associated Press reported.

Individual 20: Unknown

Individual 21: Unknown

Individual 22: Unknown

Individual 23: Unknown

Individual 24: Unknown

Individual 25: Appears to be Doug Logan

Logan, the conspiracy-spinning CEO of Cyber Ninjas, became infamous for his shambolic GOP-led audit of the 2020 results in Arizona. But he also was involved in supposed election checking in Georgia.

The indictment describes an incident in which Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton granted two men unauthorized access to local facilities.

“On or about the 18th day of January 2021, Misty Hampton allowed unindicted co-conspirators Individual 25 and Individual 29, whose identities are known to the grand jury, to access non-public areas of the Coffee County Board of Elections & Registration Office,” one part reads.

Long-publicized video footage from that exact date shows Hampton leading Logan as well as supposed “systems vulnerability expert” Jeffrey Lenberg into that exact facility.

So which one is 25 and which one is 29? The indictment additionally alleges that on four separate dates, Individual 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler and its team had uploaded to a server.

Documents previously filed in a sprawling federal lawsuit on electronic voting in Georgia list five men whose accounts accessed that material. Logan’s name is on that list. Lenberg’s is not. Ergo, Individual 25 appears to be Logan.

Logan did not respond to phone calls and text messages for comment.

Individual 26: Unknown

Individual 27: Unknown

Individual 28: Appears to be Jim Penrose

A former National Security Agency officer-turned-Powell lackey, Penrose requested the Coffee County data and a bill from SullivanStrickler COO Paul Maggio—and looped in Powell’s lawyer Stefanie Lambert—in an email exchange from late April 2021 that The Washington Post revealed last year.

The indictment describes that correspondence, except instead of naming Penrose, it attributes the initial outreach to Individual 28.

“On or about the 22nd day of April 2021, unindicted co-conspirator Individual 28, whose identity is known to the grand jury, sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler LLC directing him to transmit all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment at the Coffee County Board of Elections & Registration Office in Coffee County, Georgia, to unindicted co-conspirator Individual 30, whose identity is known to the grand jury, an attorney associated with Sidney Katherine Powell and the Trump campaign,” the indictment reads.

Penrose did not respond to calls or text messages for comment.

Individual 29: Appears to be Jeffrey Lenberg

As noted under Individual 25, Lenberg accompanied Logan on the Jan. 18, 2021, visit to the Coffee County Board of Elections Office enabled by Hampton. And because Lenberg can’t be Individual 25, he would appear to be Individual 29.

Lenberg did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Individual 30: Appears to be Stefanie Lambert

As referenced under Individual 28, the indictment describes Individual 30 as “an attorney associated with Sidney Katherine Powell and the Trump campaign” who was a party to correspondence between Penrose and Maggio, the SullivanStrickler COO.

Not only was Lambert part of that exchange, but she’s a longtime attorney to Powell. Further, she now faces criminal charges in Michigan for allegedly gaining unlawful access to voting equipment in the Wolverine State on behalf of another Trump-linked plot.

An attorney for Lambert denied wrongdoing on his client’s part, but also didn’t explicitly deny that she was Individual 30.

“My client is a brilliant and zealous advocate for her clients. Stefanie Lambert has done nothing illegal,” said lawyer Michael Smith. “Like all law firms, Lambert hires experts to opine on potential cases or cases in active litigation. She intends to file suit against any person or entity falsely implying her legal work was improper.”

Pressed to confirm or deny whether Lambert was the aforementioned unindicted co-conspirator, Smith wrote back: “There is nothing to indict.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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