A second campaign lawyer for former US president Donald Trump on Friday reached a plea deal that would see him testify for the prosecution in the case alleging that the former US president led a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Kenneth Chesebro, 62, was indicted on racketeering and other charges in the southern state in August along with the former president and 17 other codefendants.
Chesebro was accused of orchestrating a plan to submit a slate of fake electors to Congress in a bid to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.
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Jury selection for his trial began on Friday at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, but was abruptly halted after Chesebro entered into a surprise last-minute plea deal with prosecutors.
Chesebro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, faced seven charges including racketeering — a felony that carries jail time — conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to file false documents.
He pleaded guilty to the single charge of conspiracy to file false documents in exchange for a sentence of five years probation, US$5,000 in restitution and 100 hours of community service.
“You are to testify truthfully in any other proceedings in this case against any and all other codefendants,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee added at the plea hearing.
Chesebro’s guilty plea came one day another former Trump campaign attorney, Sidney Powell, also entered into a plea deal with prosecutors that would see her testify at the upcoming trials of the other codefendants.
Powell, 68, was a vocal Trump supporter who pushed outlandish conspiracy theories about foreign manipulation of voting machines.
She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties and was sentenced to six years of probation.
Legal analysts said the plea deals are a potential blow to Trump, who is accused of leading a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia, where Biden won by about 12,000 votes.
In addition to having two of his former lawyers testifying against him, Trump and his attorneys will also no longer be able to have an early look at the evidence and strategy that prosecutors might have used at his own eventual trial.
Meanwhile, in a separate case against Trump, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered the 77-year-old former president to pay a US$5,000 fine within 10 days to the New York Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection for not complying with a partial gag order.
“Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions,” including jail time, Engoron said in a court filing.
Engoron slapped a limited gag order on the former president on Oct. 3 after he insulted the judge’s principal law clerk in a social media post on his Truth Social platform.
The offending post was removed from Truth Social the same day, but the judge complained in his filing on Friday that it remained on a Trump 2024 campaign Web site for 17 days, until the court asked on Thursday that it be taken down.
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