Trump Co-Defendant Pleads Guilty and Agrees to Testify in Georgia Election Interference Case
Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who was a co-defendant in former President Donald Trump’s racketeering trial in Georgia, has accepted a plea deal in which he agrees to testify for the prosecution.
Chesebro was slapped with five years’ probation and a $10,000 fine, according to ABC.
In addition to testifying for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, Chesebro agreed to provide documents and other evidence to the prosecution.
Attorney Scott Grubman, who represented Chesebro, was asked whether Trump should be worried about what his former co-defendant might say on the witness stand.
“I don’t think so,” he said,
Steve Sadow, Trump’s attorney in the case, noted that Chesebro’s racketeering charge, which alleged there was a grand conspiracy at work when Trump challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election, was dismissed.
“It is very important for everyone to note that the RICO [racketeering] charge … was dismissed. I fully expect that truthful testimony would be favorable to my defense strategy,” he said.
Although prosecutors claimed Chesebro was a key figure in developing multiple slates of alternate electors to cast Electoral College votes for Trump, he pleaded guilty to only a charge of filing false documents.
Grubman said Chesebro had been “inaccurately” described as the “architect” of the so-called fake elector plan.
“If that was true, would the DA have offered him probation?” Grubman asked.
Grubman said the deal was “too good to turn down.”
“He gets to go home to his family now … and not spend one day in jail. He was facing very, very serious charges,” Grubman said.
On Thursday, former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell agreed to a plea deal in which she was granted probation after agreeing to testify rather than face the charge of helping to tamper with voting machines. Chesebro is the third co-defendant to cut a deal.
Chesebro and Powell had severed their cases from the other defendants in the case, according to The Hill.
Chesebro might not be done with legal issues stemming from the 2020 election, however.
According to The New York Times, Chesebro is the person identified as Co-Conspirator 5 in a federal election interference indictment filed against Trump by federal prosecutor Jack Smith.
That co-conspirator concocted “a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification process,” the indictment said.
Grubman said that Justice Department practice has been to avoid bringing charges against someone who pleaded guilty to a crime in a separate court “unless there are very, very specific circumstances.”
“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. “
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