2020 Election Fallout 17: More Trials, More Convictions

[fraurosena]

Good development.

 

[fraurosena]

In other words: He flipped. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More of this, please:

 

[47of74]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More of this, please:

 

More on this

Quote

Sixteen fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming President Donald Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election have been charged with crimes, state Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday.

The charged individuals are Kathy Berden, a Republican National Committeewoman from Michigan; William (Hank) Choate; Amy Facchinello; Clifford Frost; Stanley Grot; John Haggard; Mary-Ann Henry; Timothy King; Michele Lundgren, Meshawn Maddock, the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party; James Renner; Mayra Rodriguez; Rose Rook; Marian Sheridan; Ken Thompson; and Kent Vanderwood.

All 16 individuals were charged with multiple felonies “for their role in the alleged false electors scheme following the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Nessel’s office announced. The counts include one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, two counts of forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit uttering and publishing and one count of uttering and publishing – all of which carry a maximum of 14 years in prison – as well as one count of conspiracy to commit election law forgery and two counts of election law forgery, which carry a maximum of five years in prison.

Fuck all of them.  Along with the orange sack of shit.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm glad he is getting serious prison time. I wish it was a longer sentence.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I hope they sing like canaries:

 

[fraurosena]

 

[CTRLZero]

Re:  Stefanie Lambert (I assume this is the same person, there are too many election deniers) - she has apparently put her law license in peril, among other shady dealings.  Here’s one article I found.  She’s being sued.

Stefanie Lambert sued for nonpayment and other voting machine hijinks

Excerpts:

Spoiler

A Michigan attorney, already under a criminal investigation, is being sued in federal court by a cybersecurity firm she hired after the 2020 presidential election. 

Stefanie Lambert is one of several attorneys who made claims of voter fraud — rejected by a succession of judges and investigations — after the 2020 election. She's being investigated in Michigan for allegedly illegally obtaining voter tabulator machines. 

The new civil suit alleges that Lambert and a financial backer, Bill Bachenberg, hired the firm XRVision to investigate possible election irregularities in Antrim County, Michigan, and Fulton County, Pennsylvania.

XRVision found no irregularities in either county. 

In the case of the Antrim County investigation, the lawsuit says despite finding no evidence of fraud, Lambert asked the company to claim there were cheat codes in the software used in the election system, and that there was evidence of remote or local hacking of the elections systems. 

XRVision refused to do so.

In the case of the Fulton County investigation, the suit claims Lambert and Bachenberg became "furious" when the cybersecurity firm informed them there were no voting irregularities in the 2020 election there, either.

Afterwards, the two allegedly told government officials in three states that Yaacov Apelbaum, the president and chief technology officer of XRVision, and his firm were "incompetent" and "secretly working as malicious operatives of the federal government."

The lawsuit also alleges breach of contract, saying Lambert and Bachenburg refused to pay for the Fulton County investigation. 

The lawsuit seeks more than $10 million in damages.…

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by CTRLZero
Spoiler

[GreyhoundFan]

 

More:

Quote

 

The court has taken a break. I hope she sentences him to the max.

[GreyhoundFan]

This makes me angry. He should have gotten much more than the 71 months requested by prosecution.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"With Trump now in their ranks, some Jan. 6 defendants see hope"

Quote

Tamara Perryman, whose husband, Brian Jackson, was charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, sat in an overflow room in the D.C. federal courthouse to watch former president Donald Trump’s arraignment.

Perryman, 43, has attended many hearings inside the building, hoping to support people charged with trying to block Congress’s work formalizing Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. On this day, she viewed the proceedings via closed-circuit TV, amid far more spectators than normal. But the scene was all too familiar.

As she saw the former president sitting at the defense table and listened to the judge read out the charges against him, she thought: “Welcome to the club, Trump. You’re a J6er now.”

Before the former president was indicted on a charge of trying to overturn the 2020 election, 1,077 people had faced federal charges in some way tied to the events of Jan. 6, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. Trump was the 1,078th.

Inside the D.C. jail, defendants being held in Jan. 6-related cases say they are trading legal theories on how Trump’s case could affect their own — and joking about which empty cell could house the 45th president of the United States. Some of those charged in the Capitol attack say they think the newest, highest-profile member of their ranks bolsters the argument that they are “political prisoners,” and they hope his case might offer them some legal help, too.

The right-wing group Look Ahead America added Trump to its “J6 Prisoner Database.” Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia state legislator whose participation in the Capitol riot led to a three-month jail sentence, posted on Facebook about the indictment: “President Trump is getting ready to become a J6 Political Prisoner just like me.”

“We’re like, if Trump comes in here, we’re gonna put him in 45 cell,” said Shane Jenkins, 46, of Houston, who was found guilty of several charges in connection with the riot, including one Trump now faces, and is being held in the D.C. jail. “We definitely talk about Donald Trump. I don’t think they’ll ever put him in jail, per se. And if they do, I hope they would bring him here. We would have a good time, and it would be awesome to get to meet Donald Trump.”

Extremism analysts say characterizing Trump and the Jan. 6 defendants as political prisoners is wrong and could have dangerous consequences.

“Claims that insurrectionists are political prisoners is a way of deflecting accountability, of building political support,” said Lindsay Schubiner, the director of programs at the Western States Center, a Portland, Ore.-based civil rights nonprofit organization that monitors extremism and anti-democracy movements. “And maybe most importantly, a way of normalizing violence against American institutions and our democracy itself.”

Even before he was charged, Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, had promoted the idea that he was being unfairly investigated and that those held in connection with Jan. 6 were being mistreated. He opened the first mega-rally of his 2024 campaign in Waco, Tex., with a recording of the “J6 Prison Choir,” the people jailed for their role in the Capitol riot singing a rendition of the national anthem. His campaign sent an April fundraising email of a fake mug shot of the former president over the words “NOT GUILTY.” Ahead of his arraignment, he posted online that he was being arrested — even though he flew to D.C. in a private plane, appeared in court voluntarily and left afterward.

Of the four counts handed up in the indictment of Trump, two are identical to the charges many Jan. 6 defendants face: obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. More than 310 others have been charged with the obstruction count in connection with Jan. 6, and 42 others have faced conspiracy charges, either to obstruct the electoral vote count or to obstruct police during the riot, according to Justice Department statistics.

The obstruction count has been the focus of several unsuccessful legal challenges, and some hope the president being charged with that crime by special counsel Jack Smith will aid their bids to get their convictions quashed. That is possible if the Supreme Court agrees with one D.C. judge that the charge is an inappropriate use of the law.

“The issue of [obstruction] is hanging by a thread,” said defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi, “given the composition of the Supreme Court, and he appointed three of the justices.”

The obstruction charge was originally crafted after the Enron energy company investigations to prohibit document or evidence destruction, but a second clause adds, “or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding,” which in this case means the Jan. 6 electoral vote count. Multiple D.C. judges rejected defense arguments that the law applies only to evidence destruction. But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols agreed and dismissed the obstruction count against three men. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed Nichols, and now the case is before the Supreme Court.

“Having Trump as part of the equation,” Rossi said, “that does help the other Jan. 6 defendants charged with obstruction,” since the Supreme Court will be aware that its decision will affect Trump’s case as well as 300 others. But Trump, and most of the 300 others, still face other serious charges related to Jan. 6, Rossi noted, and many already have been convicted of those other charges as well.

Jailed Jan. 6 defendants have paid close attention to Trump’s legal challenges. When Trump arrived for his court appearance, Brandon Fellows, 29, who is in custody in Jan. 6-related charges, said that TVs were turned on and “everybody was watching it.”

Fellows, one of the hundreds of people charged with the obstruction count, said he hopes Trump’s lawyers successfully argue that the particular section of the U.S. criminal code, 1512, is not applicable to Jan. 6 cases.

“As far as him being charged with a 1512, I think that it’s really great, at least for the people in here,” Fellows said of Trump. “We don’t have the resources anywhere near the resources that Trump has. So I think he’ll be able to possibly, even with a corrupt court, I think he’ll possibly be able to get good lawyers on it. And possibly do away with the 1512. Because I think the charge is bogus both for him and also myself.”

Trump almost certainly would not win a motion to dismiss his obstruction charges in front of U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is hearing his case. That is because the appeals court’s ruling is binding precedent in D.C.— unless there is a Supreme Court reversal, Rossi said. So, fellow Jan. 6 defendants should not expect legal help to emerge directly from Trump’s case.

Obstruction of an official proceeding carries a potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison, although federal guidelines generally call for far lower sentences. In comparison, a misdemeanor conviction for trespassing or illegally demonstrating in the Capitol carries a sentence of a year at most.

More than 760 people have been convicted either by guilty plea or at trial of Jan. 6-related charges. For those sentenced on the obstruction count through mid-June, the average prison sentence has been about 35 months, or nearly three years, according to a Washington Post database. The longest sentence for obstruction so far has been 83 months, or nearly seven years.

On a recent night after Trump’s arraignment, Perryman, whose husband is jailed on Jan. 6 charges, joined a handful of others outside the D.C. jail to hold a “vigil.” The small group gathers every night to protest the Jan. 6 related cases.

Perryman, who is a regular attendee, held a microphone up to her phone, broadcasting the voice of Christopher Quaglin, who was found guilty of several Jan. 6 charges including obstruction of an official proceeding.

Quaglin cited Trump’s calls to move his trial out of D.C. — although his tone was not particularly hopeful. There have been more than a dozen requests by Jan. 6 defendants for changes of venue. None have been successful.

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” Quaglin said. “So what about me? What about my family? What about the rest of the guys in here? What about their families? What about everything that’s gone on for two years?”

 

 

 

[CTRLZero]

Proud Boys sentencing requests (excerpt from Seattle Times/AP article):

Enrique Tarrio - 33 years

Prosecutors are also asking for a 33-year-sentence for one of Tarrio’s co-defendants, Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida, a self-described Proud Boys organizer. 

They are asking the judge to impose a 30-year prison term for Zachary Rehl, who was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia; 27 years in prison for Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Washington, who was a Proud Boys chapter president; and 20 years for Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York. Pezzola was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other serious charges.

[GreyhoundFan]

Boo-fucking-hoo:

 

[fraurosena]

[fraurosena]

Seven? Does this mean he has received some more target letters?

[CTRLZero]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Seven? Does this mean he has received some more target letters?

I wondered about that number, too.  🤷‍♀️  

[Ozlsn]

17 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I wondered about that number, too.  🤷‍♀️  

Apparently yes. Yay!

On 8/14/2023 at 9:15 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

It’s like a double-edged sword,” Quaglin said. “So what about me? What about my family? What about the rest of the guys in here? What about their families? What about everything that’s gone on for two years?”

He's so, so close to realising that Trump doesn't care about any of that, and any benefit Trump manages to gain won't flow down. So close to realising he was used. Hope he gets there...

[47of74]

[GreyhoundFan]

Good. "Federal judge rejects bids to halt Georgia prosecution of Trump aides over 2020 election"

Quote

A federal judge quickly shot down bids Wednesday by two former Trump administration officials — Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark — to derail the criminal proceedings against them in Fulton County, where they’re charged alongside Donald Trump with a sprawling racketeering conspiracy to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

In two six-page rulings by Atlanta-based U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones effectively ensures that Meadows and Clark will face arrest this week, a result both men attempted to prevent in a series of emergency filings.

Meadows and Clark had both pleaded with Jones to prohibit District Attorney Fani Willis from arresting them by a Friday deadline for the 19 defendants to turn themselves in. Both men say their cases should be handled — and ultimately dismissed — by federal courts because of their work for the Trump administration.

Jones, an appointee of President Barack Obama, sided with Willis’ arguments that the law governing so-called removal of state criminal cases to federal court makes quite clear that those proceedings can continue while a federal judge considers whether it is appropriate to shift the case into the federal system.

“Until the federal court assumes jurisdiction over a state criminal case, the state court retains jurisdiction over the prosecution and the proceedings continue,” Jones wrote.

“The clear statutory language for removing a criminal prosecution … does not support an injunction or temporary stay prohibiting District Attorney Willis’s enforcement or execution of the arrest warrant against Meadows,” the judge added in his decision on Meadows’ motion.

The judge noted that the relevant provision of federal law can mean that defendants are not only arrested, but sometimes even put on trial while motions to move their cases to federal court are pending.

“The Court’s research has found that [the statute] has been followed even in cases where a criminal defendant, who had filed a notice of removal in federal court, was required to proceed to trial in the state court,” Jones noted.

Less than two hours before Jones’ rulings, Willis submitted filings arguing forcefully against the efforts by Meadows and Clark to obtain the court’s emergency intervention. There’s simply no basis, she said, for a federal court to sideline state proceedings just because two of the defendants had sought an urgent transfer of their cases.

“Federal courts have repeatedly denied requests to interfere in state criminal prosecutions,” Willis’ team noted in the 13-page response to the effort by Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff during the last nine months of Trump’s term. “Generally, only in cases of proven harassment or prosecutions taken in bad faith without hope of obtaining a valid conviction is federal intervention against pending state prosecutions appropriate.”

Willis also noted that Trump himself, Meadows’ former boss, “voluntarily agreed to surrender himself to state authorities, while other defendants have already surrendered.”

The responses to Meadows and Clark are the first substantive filings Willis has made since indicting Trump and 18 others last week on charges that they conspired to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia. She’s seeking to put the former president on trial by March 4, though she’s likely to contend with a slew of pretrial efforts by many of the 19 defendants to disrupt her timeline.

For example, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney closely associated with Trump’s bid to subvert the election, filed a motion earlier Wednesday for a trial to take place before the end of the year — a timeline even faster than Willis’ own. And David Shafer, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, has similarly asked to transfer the case to federal court.

Trump has yet to weigh in on his own preference for a trial timeline, but he has continued to publicly assault the case on social media. He is scheduled to turn himself in to Willis’ custody on Thursday for booking. A grand jury indicted him last week on 13 charges, including racketeering and soliciting Georgia officials to violate their oaths.

The district attorney was even more pointed in her response to Clark, who served as the Senate-confirmed head of the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division for most of the Trump administration.

In the administration’s waning days, he was involved in a plan to have Trump order the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, replaced with Clark. The effort, aimed at getting the Justice Department to urge states to hold up their certification of the presidential election, was aborted after Rosen and the entire remainder of the department leadership cadre threatened to resign in protest.

Clark, in his motion to transfer the case to federal court, launched a sweeping attack on Willis’ prosecution, calling it politically motivated and rejecting the notion that he should ever have to submit to state proceedings for his work as a federal government official. He also lamented that he’d have to hastily arrange travel to Atlanta for booking without intervention by the federal court.

“As inconvenient as modern air travel can admittedly be,” Willis wrote in the 15-page response, “whatever nuisance involved in the defendant securing a flight to Atlanta within the window provided is self-evidently insufficient justification to invoke this Court’s authority to enjoin a State felony criminal prosecution.”

Willis noted that federal courts routinely refrain from interfering in state court proceedings without, at the very least, holding an evidentiary hearing. Jones has scheduled one to take place in Meadows’ case on Aug. 28. Willis said there are no known examples of a federal court plucking a case out of a state’s jurisdiction without first going through that process. In addition, she said, Meadows and Clark may continue to be subject to arrest even if the case is moved to federal court.

“In essence, the defendant’s emergency motion is a plea to this [federal] Court to prevent the defendant from being arrested on the charges lawfully brought by the State of Georgia,” Willis wrote in her response to Meadows. “Despite the Defendant’s attempts to characterize the request as a ‘temporary pause,’ it is a request that the routine processing and handling of a criminal matter in the State system be dictated by federal authority. Such a request is improper.”

Willis noted that her decision to give Trump and his co-defendants two business weeks to turn themselves in was a “matter of professional courtesy” that she was not obliged to offer once she had obtained the indictment from the Georgia grand jury.

Jones has set a hearing for Monday on Meadows’ bid to move the criminal case to federal court, but both Meadows and Clark have asked the federal judge to move before that to prevent the men from being arrested.

Willis has indicated she intends to call several witnesses at Monday’s hearing, including at least two attorneys who worked on Trump’s lawsuits to overturn the election in Georgia.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What a prince /s "Defendant in Trump Georgia case was earlier charged with attacking FBI agent"

Quote

A Trump supporter indicted last week in Fulton County, Ga., for allegedly harassing an election worker was charged earlier this year with attacking an FBI agent working on the Justice Department’s parallel investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The arrest of Harrison William Prescott Floyd III, which has not been previously reported, offers new information about the breadth of the federal probe led by special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged former president Donald Trump for allegedly attempting to obstruct Joe Biden’s election victory.

It could also complicate any bail agreement for Floyd in Fulton County, where District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has said he and the 18 others indicted on state-level charges last week — a group that includes Trump — must surrender by Friday or risk being arrested.

Floyd, 39, also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, is a little-known player who helped run Trump’s 2020 campaign outreach to Black voters. An online member profile and Q-and-A posted by the University Club of Washington in November 2021 describes him as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran whose assignments included roles as a machine gunner, combat marksmanship trainer and martial arts instructor.

He has not responded to phone and email requests for comment. Carlos J.R. Salvado, the attorney representing Floyd in Maryland on charges of assaulting a federal officer, declined to comment.

Agents went to Floyd’s apartment in Rockville, Md., on Feb. 23 to serve a grand jury subpoena, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The agents were delivering the subpoena as part of Smith’s investigation of efforts by Trump and his supporters to undo the results of the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the investigation. The subpoena sought Floyd’s appearance before a federal grand jury in Washington.

The affidavit accuses Floyd of body-slamming an agent and hurling expletives at the agent and his colleague.

“WHO THE F--- DO YOU THINK YOU ARE,” Floyd allegedly screamed, standing “chest to chest” with an agent after knocking him backward with his body.

In Georgia, Floyd is charged with racketeering, conspiracy to solicit false statements and influencing witnesses. The charges stem from his alleged efforts alongside a professional publicist and a preacher to pressure a local election worker, Ruby Freeman, into falsely confessing to election crimes that she did not commit. Freeman was the target of repeated lies by Trump and his supporters in the days and weeks after the 2020 election. The former president mentioned her 18 times in a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, at one point calling her a “professional vote scammer and hustler.”

On Aug. 11, three days before he was indicted in the Georgia case, Floyd responded online to a social media post about the case, writing, “The receipts dont lie, and the best is yet to come.”

In 2019 and 2020, Floyd helped lead the Trump campaign’s Black Voices for Trump, seeking to bolster support for the then-president’s reelection bid. Floyd announced a run for Congress in Georgia in 2019 but dropped out of the race within weeks. An ad for his short-lived campaign included images of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) before showing footage of Floyd shooting a weapon.

“I’ll fight socialists in Congress the same way I fought terrorists in the desert,” he said in the campaign video.

After allegedly attacking the agent in February, Floyd was arrested by local police, according to the affidavit. He was charged by federal authorities in May. Under conditions set by the federal magistrate, Floyd was ordered to surrender his passport and was barred from possessing weapons.

The agents went to the apartment complex, in a suburb of Washington, after Floyd’s in-laws told agents where he lived. At various points, they spoke to Floyd by phone and through an apartment call box, according to the affidavit, recording their interactions.

They later learned that Floyd’s mother-in-law texted him copies of the agents’ FBI business cards and let him know they wanted to talk to him. Floyd repeatedly asked if the agents had evidence of a crime and said he was busy caring for his daughter, the affidavit says. He also asked the agents to stop calling him.

“Ok we will see you soon,” the agent who was later attacked responded to Floyd during one conversation, according to the affidavit.

Thirty minutes later, after seeing Floyd walk toward the apartment entrance while holding his daughter, the agents spoke to Floyd again. An agent held out the subpoena and asked Floyd to take it, but he refused, the affidavit says.

The agents followed Floyd into the apartment building’s stairwell, stating, “Sir, I’m going to walk up behind you here, and we’re going to leave the subpoena right at the front door.”

One offered to discuss the subpoena with him and answer questions, adding, “We’re really sorry to bother you.”

Floyd responded, “Bro I don’t even know who you are,” according to the affidavit. “You’re two random guys who are following me up here, into my house, with my daughter. You’re not showing me a f------ badge, you haven’t shown me s---. Get the f--- away from me.”

An agent held out his FBI credentials, but Floyd did not look at them, the affidavit says. He instead opened his apartment door then slammed it shut. As the door closed, an agent tossed the subpoena, which lodged between the door and its frame. The agents turned to leave.

They heard yelling and saw Floyd running down the stairs toward them.

The affidavit says Floyd rushed toward the agents and ran into one of them, jabbing a finger in his face and continuing to scream expletives. Floyd backed away when he saw that the other agent was reaching toward his weapon, the document says.

After the agents left, Floyd called 911 and reported that two men had “accosted him,” “followed him into his house,” were “threatening him” and were “throwing stuff” at him, according to the affidavit. He said during that call, which was recorded, that “one of them had a gun.” Floyd later told local police that he had shut the door on the men so that he could go to his kitchen to “get a weapon,” the affidavit says.

The affidavit also says Floyd told police he didn’t know what the subpoena was and said the agents had “touched me” as they followed him up the stairs to his apartment. He said that they had not introduced themselves and that he “didn’t know if they were reporters.”

Smith’s indictment of Trump for his actions after the 2020 election is more narrowly focused than the Fulton County charges brought by Willis. But the federal investigation also has been far-reaching. Smith has examined in great detail the activities of Trump’s campaign, his political action committee, and other people and groups, looking at the ways people linked to Trump lied about the election results and tried to use those lies to make state, local and federal officials alter the vote’s outcome.

According to the Georgia indictment, Illinois pastor Stephen Lee asked Floyd to help contact Freeman after Lee knocked on her door, allegedly hoping to persuade Freeman to falsely say there had been fraud in the election. Lee told Floyd that Freeman would not talk to him because he is a White man, according to the indictment, and said he wanted Floyd’s assistance. Both Floyd and Freeman are Black.

Floyd recruited publicist Trevian Kutti, who also is Black, to travel from Chicago to the Atlanta area to meet with Freeman, according to the indictment. Kutti allegedly told Freeman, who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by Trump of manipulating votes, that she was in danger and asked her to meet her at a police station. They met, and Kutti told Freeman she could move her to a secure location because in about 48 hours actions would be taken that would “disrupt your freedom,” according to police body-camera footage that was first reported by Reuters.

“You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up,” Kutti told Freeman, according to the footage.

Lee and Kutti were also charged in Fulton County with racketeering and other crimes. A woman who answered Kutti’s phone on Tuesday identified herself as an assistant and declined to comment. An attorney for Lee said the activities he is accused of, such as knocking on doors and participating in phone calls, are not crimes.

An attorney for Freeman declined to comment.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Eastman's lawyer is as slimy as his client.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What a delusional idiot.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Another harebrained idea from Kenneth Chesebro"

Quote

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro apparently thought himself to be very clever. He is said to have helped launched the phony-elector scheme that is now the subject of both federal and Georgia state indictments, spelled out the plan in a Dec. 6, 2020, memo and seems to have hung out with Alex Jones on Jan. 6, 2021.

He likely never imagined that he would wind up joined at the hip with his client, former president Donald Trump, as a criminal defendant. But, alas, all of the above landed him an indictment in state court and the status of unindicted co-conspirator No. 5 in a federal case.

And then he made things worse.

Chesebro this past week apparently figured he would catch Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis unprepared. He moved, as he is entitled, for a speedy trial. Willis shot back: She’ll try all 19 defendants beginning Oct. 23. Oops! The judge agreed with Willis and set Chesebro’s trial for Oct 23.

The four-time-indicted Trump moved to sever his case (get tried separately) from Chesebro. His objective is to delay any trial or conviction beyond the 2024 election. (Chesebro’s ability to go to trial so quickly might harm Trump’s protests that he will need years to prepare.) One can expect many, if not all, other defendants to also sever their cases from Chesebro’s. That would leave Chesebro all by himself facing state charges under the racketeering statute as well as for charges of conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public official, conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

Willis might have a clean shot at a single defendant against whom there is replete evidence. In a televised trial, Americans will see the ton of evidence of the alleged “criminal enterprise” and understand just how dramatically a trial differs from right-wing media spin. (And though Trump might find a “holdout” juror to a get a hung jury, the chance that someone will feel as committed to exonerating Chesebro is small.) Moreover, with a trial teed up, the pressure on Chesebro to “flip” might be intense. None of this portends well for Trump or for Chesebro. The last thing Trump wants is a conviction of one of his alleged co-conspirators.

How strong a case against Chesebro does Willis have? Very. Chesebro authored a Nov. 18, 2020, memo recommending an alternative slate of electors in states where litigation was still pending. In a Dec. 6, 2020, memo, Chesebro advised that they could drum up phony electors in six states to give Vice President Mike Pence the opportunity to throw the election to Trump.

On MSNBC (where I am a contributor), legal experts and lawyers Norman Eisen and Joshua Kolb explained:

Chesebro himself indicated in the memo that he knew this legal theory was dubious, using euphemisms like “bold” and “controversial” to describe it. He acknowledged that the Supreme Court would “likely” reject it. Nevertheless, the memo bluntly declares a goal that was allegedly criminal: to “prevent Biden from amassing 270 electoral votes” even though Biden had legitimately won more than that number. . . . It’s clear Chesebro’s true intention was not to present a neutral or even novel legal theory. This was fundamentally a political strategy, cloaked in the garb of the law.

The Dec. 6 memo is damning in part because Chesebro misrepresents the work of his former mentor Laurence H. Tribe. But Tribe blew the whistle on Chesebro’s gambit. Tribe, writing for Just Security, explained, “Specifically, in an apparent effort to get around the obviously binding force of the Electoral Count Act — as to which John Eastman infamously wrote Vice President Pence’s chief counsel to ‘implore’ him to consider ‘one more relatively minor violation’ of the ECA (para 122) — Chesebro completely misused part of the latest edition of my constitutional law treatise.”

Tribe, of course, never suggested that Pence could engage in a stunt, never suggested that Congress could choose different electors willy-nilly and never suggested that the Dec. 14 date for finalizing electors could be extended. Tribe joined in an ethics complaint filed with the New York bar.

Put differently, Chesebro went from recommending backup electors to recommending “alternatives” or fake ones that would cast votes even when no legal dispute existed and the time for challenging electors had passed. Trump’s electors would misrepresent themselves as actual electors, which they were not.

As Just Security founder Ryan Goodman observed on X, formerly known as Twitter, in a dispute over whether Trump attorney John Eastman’s writings were protected by attorney-client privilege, U.S. District Judge David Carter found that one of Chesebro’s memos likely furthered federal crimes. Goodman also cited a Chesebro email in which the latter concedes he modeled the phony-elector slate on real Georgia elector documents.

What was Chesebro thinking? Well, Chesebro has arrogantly asserted that he has nothing to worry about because he was just rendering ordinary legal advice. But when lawyers help plot illegal gambits and then help implement them, they cross over from lawyer to defendant. (The fraud-crime exception pierces the attorney-client veil so lawyers cannot shield their clients from criminal liability by joining in criminality with them!)

What might explain Chesebro’s predilection for wild schemes? Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin did a deep dive into Chesebro’s legal background and training and found a Chesebro colleague who recalled: “Ken gets so fascinated with ideas and arguments, and if it’s something novel, he liked it better. … The practical implications were always less important to him.” In other words, as Tribe remarked, Chesebro lacks good judgment.

Now, sooner than anyone imagined, and thanks to Chesebro, Willis could well get a chance to show the whole country the criminal enterprise that Trump allegedly directed.

 

[Howl]

Mark Meadows:  I'm so special and was doing my way important job as Chief of Staff.  Federal things, White House, not state. You wouldn't understand.  I need an extension and shouldn't have to come to Georgia. f

Fanni Willis: Be here by the deadline or I'll sign a warrant for your arrest at noon on Friday and throw your sorry ass in jail. 

Mark Meadows:  Yes, Your Honor, I'll get my sorry ass to GA in a very timely manner. 

Chesebro will likely be the first at trial. He and Sidney Powell have requested speedy trials. Oct 23 is the date for Chesebro. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

Info about the Proud Boys upcoming sentencing: