On Friday, attorney Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. In the plea deal, he agreed to testify against his co-conspirators in the racketeering case brought by prosecutors in Georgia against former President Trump and others.

Chesebro’s guilty plea and Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s guilty plea to six felonies in the same case on Thursday are extremely valuable to Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis prosecution. Their agreement to provide evidence against other defendants is a major blow to Trump and other top figures in the case, including Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and California attorney John Eastman.

The two pleas show that Willis’ strategy is unfolding exactly as designed, working his way up the ladder of testimony from the lesser participants to the key defendants in the alleged conspiracy.

According to CNN, Chesebro has now implicated Trump in a criminal conspiracy and, as part of the plea deal, determined that the false electoral plot was part of

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attempt to violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law by undermining the Electoral College procedures.

Chesebro was the first person to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. Other defendants are sure to see the ominous trend with any plea deal: Willis demanding access to crimes of increasing severity. The remaining defendants (except Trump) should think even more seriously about getting a plea deal before the costs become even higher.

The case for Chesebro and Powell is important for two main reasons. First, both lawyers were on high rungs of the ladder, very close to the top. Second, avoiding a trial for either is a victory for Willis.

If Willis is focused on bringing Trump and his top lieutenants to justice, she wouldn’t want a trial in which her evidence is previewed so that other defendants can see whatever weak links there are in the prosecution’s chain of evidence.

What makes Powell and Chesebro so important?

Powell has firsthand testimony about Giuliani. Recall that she appeared with him at the infamous November 2020 press conference where brown hair dye appeared to drip from Giuliani’s sideburns. Powell spouted debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion election machines switching votes from Trump to Biden.

More importantly, she was there, along with Giuliani, Meadows and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser

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r, the shouting match meeting in the Oval Office on December 13. On August 18, 2020, the confiscation of voting machines and other outrageous suggestions about overturning the elections took center stage.

What else was discussed that Powell can testify to? Strikingly, shortly after the meeting, Trump tweeted his fateful shout to his followers: Major protest in DC on January 6. ‘The tweet said: Be there, will be wild! Willis knows exactly what Powell has to say about that meeting and everything else, as Powell included a pre-plea offer, an affidavit of the testimony she can give against other conspirators.

Likewise, Chesebro’s testimony is incredibly valuable. Chesebro worked with both Eastman and Giuliani, both of whom worked closely with Trump.

Chesebro was an alleged original architect of the false legal claim that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn the election by rejecting or delaying Congress

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6 election certification vote.

In December 2020 and January 2021, the indictment against Georgia states that Chesebro and Eastman emails exchanged with edited drafts of one or both memos Eastman sent a message to Trump detailing the illegal scheme. The indictment also alleges that the two spoke and agreed on tactics for carrying out the plot.

Significantly, Chesebro appears to have been deeply involved in its implementation. Giuliani apparently replaced Chesebro to take the lead in reaching out to fake voters like Nevada’s Jim DeGraffenreid.

Additionally, the indictment cites an instance in which Chesebro had a face-to-face meeting a fake voter while Giuliani was on the phone. Chesebro will certainly have an important testimony about a conversation with Giuliani before that meeting.

With these plea deals, Chesebro and Powell appear destined to testify against Trump, and the chances of Eastman and Giuliani pleading skyrocket. If that happens, Trump’s prospects of escaping conviction could be significantly diminished.

Another form of accountability awaits Chesebro in California. Like Eastman, who is currently suspended in a

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During the trial, Chesebro is a member of the California

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ar. Suspension proceedings will almost certainly follow against him as well.

Lawyers in California can be disbarred for crimes involving dishonesty. Chesebro just confessed to conspiring to submit false documents in a scheme to overturn the Constitution. And as a lawyer, he took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the California Constitution.

His plea on Friday was very bad news for his future. But taken together with Powell’s plea, it’s even worse news for Giuliani, Eastman and Trump.

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor in San Francisco and currently a consultant to

Lawyers defending American democracy

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