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Tag: georgia grand jury
Tearful Jenna Ellis Pleads Guilty, Apologizes, And Dumps Trump (VIDEO)

Tearful Jenna Ellis Pleads Guilty, Apologizes, And Dumps Trump (VIDEO)

On Tuesday, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis became the latest Trump associate to cut a plea deal with prosecutors in Georgia regarding her role in the racketeering case to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The bluster Ellis has been known for was gone on Tuesday as she semi-sobbed through a brief statement to the court during which she sort of took responsibility for trying to help reverse the decision of millions of Georgians while squarely blaming others for misleading her.

I endeavored to represent my client to the best of my ability. I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience than I, to provide me with true and reliable information, especially since my role involved speaking to the media and to legislators in various states. What I did not do, but should have done, your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true.[...] If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post election challenges.”

Ellis finished by claiming some responsibility: “I have taken responsibility already before the Colorado Bar who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

With Chesebro Plea After Powell, Fani Willis Is On A Roll

With Chesebro Plea After Powell, Fani Willis Is On A Roll

Now we know what Fani Willis and her team of prosecutors were doing while newspapers and cable TV chryons were headlining that Sidney Powell’s co-defendant, Kenneth Chesebro, had not copped a plea deal with prosecutors. Willis and her team were videotaping Chesebro’s proffer of written, electronic, and oral information he could provide to prosecutors in return for a sentence of three to six years of probation, community service, and a fine for pleading guilty to a single felony charge in Georgia. Chesebro had faced seven counts involving his participation in a scheme to organize fake electors to file falsified electoral ballots for Donald Trump with the National Archives and the President of the Senate in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election on January 6, when the Congress met to certify electoral ballots and declare Joe Biden winner of the 2020 election.

Willis has faced criticism ever since she empaneled an investigatory grand jury to look into what laws were broken by Trump and his compatriots in Georgia as they attempted to overturn the results of the state’s presidential election, won by Joe Biden. Willis was foundering, critics said, taking too much time on witnesses who refused subpoenas and had to be sued to get their testimony.

Then in August, when Willis finally brought her indictment against Trump and 18 co-defendants, critics said it was all just too much. How does she expect to get 19 defendants into one courtroom and run a prosecution against them? It was too unwieldly, many said, an overreach by a publicity-hungry local prosecutor trying to burnish her reputation by going after the former president, who was already facing indictment by the Special Counsel for committing many of the same crimes.

Then the Kraken cracked, and 24 hours later, so did the heretofore loyal Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro.

Reading the 98 pages of the indictment of Trump and his 18 co-defendants, it’s hard to keep up with Chesebro, he was so busy sending emails, calling co-conspirators, and meeting with John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani and members of the Trump reelection team. After Trump lost more than 60 of his legal challenges to results of the election in battleground states, something had to be done.

And then came John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro to the rescue with their Hail Mary scheme to put together slates of fake presidential electors for Trump in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia and use them to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College ballots in Congress on January 6, 2021. The fake electoral ballots had to be signed in the states by December 14, when the real electors met and cast their ballots for Biden. Then the fake electoral ballots had to be filed with the National Archives, and transmitted to the President of the Senate -- Vice President Mike Pence -- in time for the meeting of the Congress.

Busy, busy, busy were Ken and Rudy and John and Donald. From the Fulton County indictment:

Act 39: “A memorandum was written by KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO to James R. Troupis, an attorney associated with the Trump Campaign, and advocates for the position that Trump presidential elector nominees in Wisconsin should meet and cast electoral votes for DONALD JOHN TRUMP on December 14, 2020, despite the fact that DONALD JOHN TRUMP lost the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Wisconsin.”

Act 47: “KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO stated in the e-mail that certain individuals associated with the Trump Campaign asked him ‘to help coordinate with the other contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.’”

Act 49: “On or about the 10th day of December 2020, KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO sent an email with attached documents to Arizona Republican Party Executive Director Greg Safsten and others. The documents were 'to be used by Trump presidential elector nominees in Arizona for the purpose of casting electoral votes for DONALD JOHN TRUMP on December 14, 2020, despite the fact that DONALD JOHN TRUMP lost the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Arizona. This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

Act 50: “KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO sent an e-mail to Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming with proposed language for documents to be used by Trump presidential elector nominees in Wisconsin for the purpose of casting electoral votes for DONALD JOHN TRUMP on December 14, 2020, despite the fact that DONALD JOHN TRUMP lost the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Wisconsin.”

In Acts 51 through 53, Chesebro sent emails with proposed fake elector documents to officials in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia furthering the fake elector scheme.

Act 58: “KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO sent an e-mail to Jim DeGraffenreid and stated that ‘the purpose of having the electoral votes sent in to Congress is to provide the opportunity to debate the election irregularities in Congress, and to keep alive the possibility that the votes could be flipped to Trump.’”

In Acts 59, 60, and 61, Chesebro sent more fake elector documents to members of the Trump campaign to be used by fake electors in Georgia and other states.

In Act 64, Chesebro conspired with Giuliani and a member of the Trump campaign to ensure that the media was not notified of a meeting of Trump fake electors in Wisconsin.

In Act 69, Chesebro sent the same package of suggested electoral ballot documents to co-defendant Michael Roman with the proviso that the documents were to be used in the Nevada fake elector scheme.

Act 70: “KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO sent an e-mail to RUDOLPH WILLIAM LOUIS GIULIANI with the subject ‘PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL Brief notes on President of the Senate strategy.’ In the email, KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO outlined multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, the day prescribed by law for counting votes cast by the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from Georgia and the other states. In the email, KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO stated that the strategies outlined by him were ‘preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its own terms.’” (Its “own terms” being following the law and living up to the full meaning of how elections are certified in the Constitution.)

In Acts 71 and 72, Chesebro conspired with Giuliani and Roman to further the fake elector scheme in Georgia.

In Act 94, Chesebro was the recipient of an email from John Eastman laying out a strategy to avoid having the fake elector scheme considered in a hearing by the judiciary committee on the constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act. They were afraid a hearing might raise issues the Trump campaign did not want to bring up about their scheme to interfere with the Electoral College, especially if their scheme ended up before the Supreme Court.

Act 109: “On or about the lst day of January 2021, KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO sent an email to JOHN CHARLES EASTMAN and unindicted co-conspirator Individual 3, whose identity is known to the Grand Jury. In the e-mail, KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO outlined strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, the day prescribed by law for counting votes cast by the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from Georgia and the other states.”

Act 124: Another memo from Chesebro to Giuliani and Eastman on Jan. 4, 2021, outlining “multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”

Listening as Chesebro’s plea deal was read aloud in Fulton County court on Friday morning, all the names outlined above in the indictment rang out loudly: TRUMP, GIULIANI, EASTMAN, ROMAN. The criminality of the fake elector scheme was mentioned multiple times. Chesebro was asked again and again if he understood the charges against him and the criminal count to which he was pleading guilty. Of course he did. Chesebro, bless his black little conspiratorial Republican heart, is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

After prosecutors outlined the plea deal and Chesebro pled guilty, his lawyer, Scott Grubman, tried to suggest that because his client had pleaded guilty to only one count, somehow that proved he wasn’t a key player in the fake elector scheme. The plea deal “proves that he was not and never was the architect of any sort of fake elector plan or anything like that,” Grubman told reporters. This was after Grubman and his client had spent the last two months trying to come up with a strategy to defend against the “Acts” in the indictment I’ve outlined above. The strategy they ended up with was pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against any and all co-defendants, up to and including Donald John Trump.

The Washington Post reported today that Grubman said he would be surprised if Chesebro were to be called as a witness in cases against his co-defendants because, “He [Chesebro] didn’t snitch on anyone. He simply decided it was time for him to put this behind him and go on with his life.” And maybe, just maybe, Chesebro knew he did the crime and didn’t want to do the time.

With prosecutors and judges in other cases against Trump facing doxing, harassment of their spouses and families by Trump himself, and death threats from Trump followers, you have to wonder how Chesebro thought that pleading guilty to crimes he committed on behalf of Trump and offering to testify against the former president and others is going to allow him to “go on with his life” as if nothing happened.

Chesebro is applying to the court to allow him to serve out the time of his probation in Puerto Rico, where he has taken up residence. I guess he thinks that putting 1,038 miles of ocean between himself and Mar a Lago will keep the boogeyman and his minions away.

Ha!

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter , from which this is reprinted with permission.

Court Orders Meadows To Testify Before Georgia Grand Jury

Court Orders Meadows To Testify Before Georgia Grand Jury

Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis has won another mini-battle in her ongoing campaign to put a rats' nest of 2020 election-denying co-conspirators before her grand jury in Georgia. The vermin she snared this time is former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who had been fighting a subpoena to testify for months. On Wednesday, a South Carolina court ordered Meadows to appear in Atlanta and testify before the grand jury that he and seemingly every other Trumpian rat has been assiduously dodging. Meadows’ attorney, James Bannister, a criminal lawyer in South Carolina who has been listed in South Carolina Super Lawyers since 2011, announced that Meadows would appeal the order.

The list of witnesses who have testified before Willis’ grand jury is eye-opening, beginning with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state whom Trump called four days before the January 6 insurrection, asking that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” as Trump put it, so he could be declared winner of the presidential election in Georgia. (Meadows was on the line when Trump placed that call.)

Also appearing before the grand jury was a who’s who of elected officials from the state: Attorney eGeneral Chris Carr; Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan; Representative Jody Hice; Jen Jordan, a Georgia state senator who is running for attorney general; State Sen. William Lignon; Bee Nguyen, who ran against Raffensberger in the Republican primary and lost; State Rep. David Ralston; State Sen. Elena Parent; former US Sen. Kelly Loeffler; former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone; former Trump lawyer and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; and former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis.

Among the notable election deniers who have been subpoenaed but have so-far successfully fought testifying are Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp; Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser and pardoned felon; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Sen. Lindsey Graham; former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro; and former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, currently on a nationwide tour to “educate” Republican poll workers about how to deny people the right to vote on Election Day. Trump lawyer John Eastman, who authored the infamous memo outlining the fake elector scheme, has testified before the grand jury but took the Fifth in answer to every question he was asked.

Nothing to see here, right? A local D.A. in Georgia running a little minor grand jury in Fulton County looking into who did what to overturn the election in Georgia. But just look at the list of rats hiding under legal rocks and scurrying beneath a fluttering snowstorm of lawsuits trying to avoid testimony. Mark and Newt and Mike and Lindsey and Brian – oh, my goodness! What could they be afraid of?

As Meadows’ attorney pointed out in his lawsuit in South Carolina, (unsuccessfully so far) Willis’ special grand jury doesn’t even have the power to indict. At least one person subpoenaed by Willis has successfully used that theory to avoid testifying: Jacki Pick Deason, a former Trump campaign lawyer who is now – surprise, surprise! – a podcaster, convinced a Texas court to order that she had “no obligation” to appear. Nutso Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, also a Texas resident, refused her subpoena under the same bogus legal theory.

So that’s where things stand in Georgia. If you just go by the list of prominent rats scurrying for cover from the grand jury, Mark Meadows and Lindsey Graham among them, it would seem that Fani T. Willis is onto something down there. She has yet to issue a subpoena to the biggest rat of them all, Donald Trump, but tomorrow’s another day, and we can at least keep hope alive, can’t we?

Watch this space.

Coup Plotters' Love Quadrangle: Ginni And Clarence And John -- And Lindsey!

Coup Plotters' Love Quadrangle: Ginni And Clarence And John -- And Lindsey!

In a single-page order issued today, Ginni’s husband temporarily stayed a subpoena from an Atlanta grand jury seeking testimony from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in an ongoing investigation of attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

There is a neat little love quadrangle going on here, folks. The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack ffhas emails between Ginni Thomas and John Eastman, the author of one of Trump’s last attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election. Eastman wrote a memo for Trump outlining how fake slates of electors could be appointed in states Trump lost, including Georgia, and submitted to the Congress at the time electoral votes were to be counted on January 6.

The hope was that Republican Senators and Congressmen would object to the official slates of electors from those states, and that resolving the phony dispute between the fake and real electors would be thrown into the House, where it would be resolved in Trump’s favor, and he would be declared the winner of the election.

It is not known what Ginni and Eastman discussed in their exchange of emails, but Eastman was sufficiently frightened of his own subpoena by the same Georgia grand jury that he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when he testified. Eastman also invoked attorney-client privilege, the “client” being Donald Trump, before the grand jury. The end result was that he answered no questions from the Georgia grand jury about his involvement in attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election in that state.

The grand jury wants to hear from Senator Graham about his phone calls with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger during the period between Election Day in November and the certification of electoral ballots by the Congress on January 6, 2021. The other person known to have called Raffensberger on the phone during the same time period was Donald Trump, who asked the Georgia secretary of state to help him “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” so he could win the state in the presidential election.

So we’ve got Ginni emailing with Eastman, and we’ve got Eastman meeting with Trump in the Oval Office pitching the scheme for phony slates of electors in the states Trump had lost, and we’ve got Eastman refusing to testify about his involvement in overturning the election results in Georgia, and we’ve got Trump calling Raffensberger and trying to get him to come up with enough votes that he would be declared winner in Georgia.

And we’ve got Lindsey Graham filing lawsuits trying to get his grand jury subpoena quashed, losing in the federal district court in Georgia, losing again when he appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, then filing an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court last Friday, and Ginni’s husband bailing him out of complying with the subpoena today.

We know from her emails that Ginni was involved in trying to overturn election results in Arizona and Wisconsin, and I’m not saying that Lindsey Graham knows anything about Ginni’s involvement in attempting to overturn the results of the election in Georgia, which her friend John Eastman was involved in, and her friend Donald Trump was involved in. But wouldn’t it be interesting to hear what her friend Lindsey has to say about it? And isn’t it curious that her husband leapt at the opportunity to stick his nose into the Georgia investigation?

It may turn out that the full Supreme Court ends up ruling on Graham’s emergency appeal for a stay, but in the meantime, I don’t know, could Ginni’s husband possibly have a conflict of interest here?

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from L ucian Truscott Newsletter