Another of former President Donald Trump's attorneys pleaded guilty in the Georgia racketeering case, a move legal experts say could have double-edged impacts on the case.
On Friday, Kenneth Chesebro, 62, cut a last-minute deal that allows him to avoid prison but requires him to testify and otherwise cooperate as authorities pursue charges against others who allegedly tried to upend the 2020 election results.
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Chesebro, who must pay $5,000 and serve five years of probation, was the third of 19 co-defendants in the Georgia case to make a deal with District Attorney Fani Willis's team of prosecutors. Another former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, entered into a plea deal on Thursday, following a September deal for Atlanta-area bail bondsman Scott Hall.
Legal experts offered mixed reactions over Trump and other defendants' prospects, with some anticipating more plea bargains from higher-profile co-conspirators and others suggesting it may still be too early to tell whether they'll amount to a series of fallen dominoes against the former president.
"Chesebro's admission is damning for Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, and Trump because Chesebro was the architect of the fake elector scheme that involved them all," attorney Andrew Lieb of Lieb at Law told the Washington Examiner, saying it could make the aforementioned defendants more "vulnerable" to taking a plea bargain.
Trump's lead attorney in the case, Steve Sadow, said he saw the guilty pleas as a positive reinforcement, telling the Washington Examiner he believes the now-sentenced defendants' "truthful testimony would be favorable to my defense strategy.”
Better deals tend to go to defendants who cooperate with prosecutors sooner rather than later, Atlanta defense attorney Jeff Brickman told the Washington Examiner, noting that simply agreeing to cooperate doesn't always render a testimony beneficial to the state.
"As the prosecutors, you love to line up as many people as you can as potential witnesses," Brickman said. But "somebody agreeing to cooperate and having something relevant to say about the remaining defendants is another thing."
For a co-conspirator like Chesebro, prosecutors likely see his admission as a furtherance to their charge against Trump as the mastermind behind a plot to overturn the election in Georgia. Had he gone to trial, evidence that was ruled admissible in Chesebro's case showed the attorney was highly aware of the political calculus hinging on Trump's long-shot election lawsuits in late 2020.
“The relevant analysis,” Chesebro argued in correspondence with Eastman, according to emails seen by the New York Times, “is political.”
Willis's strategy was to charge 19 defendants under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and accuse the group of conspiring to subvert the election in Georgia, and experts across the board agreed the nixed trial for Chesebro blocked Trump's team from having an early preview of the prosecutors' trial strategy.
Now, in exchange for no jail time, prosecutors can hedge on the "truthful" testimony of Powell and Chesebro, among more than 150 other witnesses they plan to call to an eventual trial.
Chesebro, who was near the rioting crowd at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be called to the stand to provide an insider's perspective not only on the legal advice he gave to Trump but also on the roles other lawyers, such as Eastman and Giuliani, played in the fake electors scheme. While it remains to be seen if Powell will also take the stand, she could be asked to reveal the extent of her roots to Trump's legal world, since she filed several lawsuits claiming election fraud, though she lacked a direct role in creating fake electors.
Criminal defense attorney and former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan said he is wary of how much benefit prosecutors gain from the pleas, noting their probation sentence being handed upfront leaves Willis's team without desired "leverage."
"Generally speaking, when someone is fully cooperating and they're looking in exchange for the cooperation to get a reduced sentence, they generally don't sentence you until after you complete your cooperation," he said.
"When the prosecutor has a cooperating witness that is potentially in a position to give favorable testimony, either for the government or for the state, they don't sentence you for the very reason that they want to be able to have that over your head so that you come in and testify in any manner that they think is necessary for their case," Kaplan added.
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Ahead of Chesebro's guilty plea, Trump took to Truth Social to levy another attack against the criminal justice system.
“Massive information and 100% evidence will be made available during the Corrupt Trials started by our Political Opponent. We will never let 2020 happen again. Look at the result, OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED. MAGA!!!” the former president posted.