24 Fake Trump Electors Face Criminal Charges in 3 States
Twenty-four people who posed as fake Trump electors now face criminal charges in three different states, and the legal mastermind behind the plan has emerged as a key witness, according to recent reports.
Kenneth Chesebro, a Harvard-trained lawyer, played a significant role in orchestrating the plan to present Republicans in battleground states won by President Joe Biden as Trump electors. The goal was to delay the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
This week, a grand jury in Nevada indicted six former Trump electors on charges of forging and submitting fraudulent documents. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, an indictment was returned against former President Donald Trump and 18 allies, including three fake electors in Georgia. In Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel brought charges against all 16 Republicans who acted as Trump electors in her state but later dropped charges against one in exchange for cooperation.
Interest in Chesebro intensified after he pleaded guilty in October to a single felony charge of conspiracy in Georgia. Since then, he has been interviewed by prosecutors in Detroit and was listed as a witness in the Nevada indictment.
Chesebro, who worked for Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 election recount battle, had a change of heart and came to support Trump. He and another lawyer, John Eastman, are seen as the key legal architects of the plan to use bogus electors in swing states lost by Mr. Trump. Some of Chesebro’s old colleagues expressed surprise at his involvement in the scheme.
Chesebro’s lawyers have defended his conduct, claiming he was simply offering legal advice during the 2020 election. However, they admitted to entering a plea agreement in Georgia because the document signed by fake electors did not include language explaining that what they were signing was a contingency plan, pending litigation.
The investigations in Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada have taken different approaches, with the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., bringing a broad racketeering case that includes Mr. Trump and top aides like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows. The Michigan and Nevada cases center on the electors themselves, rather than those who aided their actions.
The underlying claims of widespread election fraud that fueled the alleged fake electors scheme have never been substantiated. New legal filings from the Justice Department have underscored the illegitimacy of Mr. Trump’s chronic claims of election fraud, highlighting that as far back as 2012, he was making baseless contentions about President Barack Obama’s defeat of Mitt Romney.