Tag: kenneth chesebro
Kenneth Chesebro

Trump Lawyer Used Secret Twitter Account In GOP Coup Plot

Kenneth Chesebro, one of the architects of Donald Trump’s fake elector plot, had a secret Twitter account he hid from investigators in Michigan that he used to promote some of his extremist theories. In October Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony in Georgia’s RICO case against Donald Trump and 18 others.

Using the handle “BadgerPundit,” Chesebro hid “dozens of damning posts that undercut his statements to investigators about his role in the election subversion scheme, a CNN KFile investigation has found,” CNN reported. “The Twitter posts reveal that even before the 2020 election, and then just two days after polls closed, Chesebro promoted a far more aggressive election subversion strategy than he later let on in his Michigan interview.”

When confronted with evidence the account belonged to Chesebro, his attorneys admitted it belonged to their client, while minimizing the damning posts as a “random stream of consciousness” where he was just “spitballing” and “being a goof.”

But, in one instance, when accused of promoting an article likened to the “death of democracy,” Chesebro on his secret social media account replied, “it’s called politics, dude,” CNN’s KFile team reports.

“When he was doing volunteer work for the campaign, he was very specific and hunkered-down into being the lawyer that he is, and gave specific kinds of legal advice based on things that he thought were legitimate legal challenges, versus BadgerPundit, who is this other guy over there, just being a goof,” said Robert Langford, an attorney for Chesebro.

But CNN reveals that on his BadgerPundit Twitter account, Chesebro said, “You don’t get the big picture. Trump doesn’t have to get courts to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead.” That was posted to Twitter, now X, on November 7, 2020, “the day multiple media outlets, including CNN, called the election for Joe Biden.”

CNN reports that contrary to his secret social media claim, “in his interview with Michigan investigators, Chesebro said the very opposite, claiming that the entire electors plan was contingent on the courts.”

“I saw no scenario where Pence could count any vote for any state because there hadn’t been a court or a legislature in any state backing any of the alternate electors,” Chesebro said.

In another twist, CNN reports, “In an email to Trump attorneys in early December 2020, Chesebro linked to a Google Drive account for the email address TheBadger14@Gmail.com, which was once used by BadgerPundit in a tweet as his contact information. Chesebro also cited the BadgerPundit account in emails to a Trump campaign official and attorney John Eastman on January 5, 2021, pointing to tweets from BadgerPundit arguing that Pence had the authority to pick the electors on January 6.”

Chesebro’s BadgerPundit account on X still exists, but has been “protected” so only those he has granted access to can read his posts. ”

TheBadger14 is also identified by Chesebro in his bio on X as a blog. NCRM found that site has been active since at least 2011, but posts from the past few years are also hidden from public view. Its “About” page suggests it is a venue for Chesebro to discuss “mocking, through exaggeration for comic effect, relatively routine instances of progressives behaving badly.”

Read the entire CNN article here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Kenneth Chesebro

Leaked Testimony Shows How Fake Electors Plot Led To Insurrection

CNN has obtained audio of attorney Kenneth Chesebro talking with Michigan state prosecutors about Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In that recording, Chesebro explains how what he now calls “a photo-op … gone south” spun out the false electors scheme and reenergized Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election. All with a big assist from an attorney named … Kenneth Chesebro.

According to Chesebro’s testimony, a meeting took place at the White House on December 16, 2020, in which several attorneys who had worked for Trump’s campaign at the state level came in to tell him the jig was up. “We had been told before the meeting not to say anything that would make [Trump] feel better about his chances than before the meeting had started,” Chesebro said.

Only Chesebro didn’t follow that advice. Other attorneys delivered bad news to Trump, including Chesebro’s friend and fellow attorney Jim Troupis, who reportedly told Trump things were “over” in Wisconsin. But when it was Chesebro’s turn to speak, he delivered a different message.

“I ended up explaining that Arizona was still hypothetically possible because the alternate electors had voted,” said the former Trump attorney. “And I explained the whole logic. I basically summarized a lot of the Nov. 18 memo, and I explained that Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsberg and Professor Lawrence Tribe had both written that Jan. 6 was the real deadline. So, because the alternate electors had voted, we had more time to win litigation.”

It’s not often someone goes on record to explain how their actions helped give rise to an insurgency, but that’s exactly what Chesebro seemed to describe.

The statement about Arizona’s alternate electors was like a bomb tossed into the meeting. According to CNN, Chesebro’s “optimistic comments” gave Trump renewed hope that his attempts to overturn the election were not finished. Former Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, who was also present, was reportedly “concerned.”

“Right after the meeting,” Chesebro says in the recordings, “Troupis said that Reince Priebus was extremely concerned with what I told the president about Arizona, and about the real deadline being January 6. And he was going to do damage control. Reince was going to follow up and was trying to mitigate whatever optimism I guess I created.” Trump apparently paid no more attention to Priebus at that meeting than when he served as Trump’s first chief of staff. But it certainly would be interesting to interview Priebus about his thoughts on the fateful December 16 confab.

That Chesebro was eager to talk about false electors isn’t a surprise. He authored a sweeping memo on Dec. 6, 2020, in which he described the majority of the scheme. Right up until January 6, Chesebro was shoving the scheme along at every step, emailing party chairs, working with Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and pulling out all the stops to create an alternative reality in which neither the Constitution nor the Electoral Count Act really matters.

According to the racketeering indictment filed in Fulton County, Georgia, Chesebro helped coordinate the selection of false electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That included not just sending letters and emails to Trump campaign staffers and Republican Party officials, but even coming up with the wording on the fake certificates that false electors would sign. In the case of Arizona, Georgia, and New Mexico, Chesebro appears to have created the fake certificates himself.

Chesebro went on to craft a memo for Giuliani and another for John Eastman explaining “multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.” In the final draft of one of these delay-and-disrupt memos, Chesebro declared that any of his strategies would be “preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms.”

That memo goes on to speculate about what might happen after Republicans overturned the election on January 6 and handed the White House back to Trump. The situation, Chesebro says, would be “messy” and the Supreme Court might try to intrude, but none of that mattered. What mattered was making sure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris never took office.

In short, no one is in this thing deeper than Chesebro. No one did more to keep the conspiracy going, even when others on Trump’s team were ready to throw in the towel. And no one, but no one, should be happier about prosecuting attorneys being willing to strike a deal than Kenneth John Chesebro.

Chesebro already pleaded guilty in the Georgia case to a single felony charge of attempting to file false documents. For this, he got five years probation, paid a $5,000 fine, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. That’s not a bad deal for someone who was facing seven felony counts and whose name appeared in 35 acts allegedly supporting the criminal conspiracy at the heart of the racketeering indictment.

Chesebro is clearly cooperating with investigators in Wisconsin, as well as Arizona and Nevada, though the full extent of any deal he made in those states is not known. CNN has also identified Chesebro as an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump’s federal trial for election interference, which suggests he may also be cooperating with special counsel Jack Smith.

On the one hand, this is all great because no one knows more about the scheme to disrupt the Jan. 6 vote count than Chesebro. However, no one did more to create and encourage that scheme. If Chesebro’s testimony helps convict Trump, then it was worth it. If there’s any other result, it was not.

Anyway, Chesebro seems willing to spill the beans about anything in exchange for staying outside of a prison cell. In the recording of his meeting with Michigan prosecutors, he said, “There was a subsequent email a week later, where Troupis said that it’s extremely important that no one ever learn what happened in the meeting. And I don’t actually know, but it was probably related to what I told the president about the real deadline and about Arizona. So there was something very sensitive about what happened in the meeting that there was concern about, that had to be kept quiet.”

Four indictments later, we know what the concern was about.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kenneth Chesebro

Trump Lawyer Chesebro Aiding Prosecutors In Two 'Fake Elector' Probes

Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who has already pleaded guilty to election interference in Georgia, is now aiding prosecutors who are pursuing charges against "fake electors" in two new states in an attempt to avoid additional criminal charges.

According to CNN, Chesebro — who was one of the architects of the "fake elector" scheme that attempted to overturn the 2020 election in multiple swing states — is now assisting state attorneys general in both Michigan and Wisconsin's fake elector investigations. Confirmation from CNN's sources about Chesebro's cooperation comes even before Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) has publicly announced the investigation. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), for her part, has confirmed that an investigation is underway and still ongoing.


The news about Chesebro's cooperation in Michigan and Wisconsin comes after his cooperation with other state attorneys general in Arizona and Nevada. While details of his cooperation have not yet been released, it could resemble his plea deal in Georgia, where Chesebro has agreed to provide Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with testimony in her prosecutions of former President Donald Trump, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, among others.

Scott Grubmann, an attorney representing Chesebro, said his client personally "never believed" that Donald Trump won the 2020 election despite his role in concocting the fake elector plot.

"If you ask Mr. Chesebro today who won the 2020 presidential election, he would say Joe Biden," Grubmann said.

The "fake elector" scheme involved Republican activists in various swing states presenting themselves as members of the electoral college in states President Joe Biden won in 2020, in an attempt to instead deliver their respective states' electoral college votes to Trump. Chesebro admitted the fake elector gambit was legally dubious and would likely not pass muster in the Supreme Court.

Chesebro initially rejected a plea offer in Georgia, though he pivoted in late October after fellow Trump attorney Sidney Powell inked her own plea deal.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chesebro Looked Impressive On Paper, But Sadly Had No Ethics At All

Chesebro Looked Impressive On Paper, But Sadly Had No Ethics At All

Where did Kenneth Chesebro come from? Son of a Wisconsin music teacher, he amassed sterling credentials, a Harvard Law degree chief among them. On paper he was impressive. But then he joined a conspiracy to overthrow the democracy. Chesebro gives credentials a bad name.

He applied his legal skills to veil criminal activity under plausible-sounding theory — all the while covering, so he thought, his own posterior. In the end, Chesebro was charged with working on slates of faked electors to overturn results in several states.

One can only marvel at his fancy legal spinning designed to facilitate the destruction of America's revered institutions. But being the careful lawyer he was, Chesebro told the Trump camp that the scheme "could appear treasonous." You don't say.

What made him do it? It isn't that he had been a Democrat who went to the other side. Yes, he had helped his Harvard mentor Laurence Tribe work for Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election. If he jumped the political chasm to advocate for Donald Trump, that was his right.

But if he truly believed in the MAGA cause, that the election was stolen, he wouldn't have agreed to flip on Trump. He would have taken the lumps and tried to defend himself in court.

The best explanation for Chesebro's performance is simpler, and boy, it is sad.

"He wanted to be close to the action," is how Tribe put it. He wanted attention.

Chesebro's Ivy polish was surely a draw for Trump given the downmarket personas of his other legal advisers. There was the batty Sidney Powell, the strutting John Eastman in his jaunty hat and flapping scarf, and the pathetic Rudy Giuliani.

Making a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case, however, puts Chesebro in the intimate company of Powell, whose swanning on TV about the plot to steal the election got so weird Trump had to fire her. Even back then, Chesebro was too smooth to join Powell in her utterly nutty claims that a dead Hugo Chavez was pulling the strings for Joe Biden. A discussion of what Powell truly believed is best left to the psychiatric profession, not the legal one.

Chesebro reportedly did tell the Trump team that a Supreme Court ruling before Jan. 6 would be more favorable to their cause if the justices feared there would be "wild" chaos on that day. This was a reference to Trump's Dec. 19 tweet: "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

What could be the harm in adding a tablespoon of intimidation into the devil's cake mix? Though Chesebro opined that there was only a 1% chance the justices would step in, appealing to them, he offered, could have "possible political value."

Both Chesebro and Powell made plea deals to snitch on other Trump allies. They include promises not to lie at the co-defendants' trials. Back in September, Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, became the first Trump ally to plead guilty in the racketeering case.

They're all getting sweet probation deals.

On January 6, Chesebro donned a MAGA hat and descended on the Capital to stop the certification of the election that Joe Biden clearly won. But he will not spend a day in prison, unlike the dopes who charged past him and broke into the Capital.

Because he knew what he was doing, Chesebro proved himself more ethically vacant than the Trumpian mobs. He applied oily legal arguments made potent by an elite education. Supporting an insurrection against the United States, he undoubtedly figured, could be a good career move.

Chesebro now says he abhorred the violence on January 6. Wouldn't he just.

Froma Harrop's column for Creators Syndicate appears in more than 150 newspapers. She is based at the Providence Journal. Follow her on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

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