Legal expert: Jan. 6 architect’s guilty plea turns the tables on Trump attempt to blame his lawyers

Kenneth Chesebro, a Donald Trump-aligned lawyer who was one of the architects of the former president’s Jan. 6 fake electors scheme, pleaded guilty Friday in the Georgia election interference case to conspiring with Trump and others, CNN reports. The deal marks a major victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who indicted Trump and 18 others, alleging a broad conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election. It also follows a day after former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six reduced charges in the case.

Chesebro pleaded guilty to one felony — conspiracy to commit filing false documents — and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee sentenced him to five years of probation and ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution. As part of his plea deal, Chesebro agreed to testify in further proceedings and admitted that he conspired to elevate fake GOP electors in Georgia with Trump and his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who have both pleaded not guilty. The agreement came shortly after jury selection in the trial started Friday morning.

“The dominos are starting to fall. Trump is planning to blame the attorneys, but now they’ll be prosecution witnesses pointing the finger at him,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “A deal like this, with no jail time, is warranted in my view IF and only if [Chesebro] can provide ample inculpatory evidence against people who are more culpable than he,” Andrew Weissman, a former assistant U.S. attorney, tweeted. George Washington University law professor Randall Eliason said the agreement is “very bad news for Trump,” noting the allegations also relate to Jack Smith’s parallel criminal case. “Chesebro’s plea is a big deal with Fani Willis. But it may be a bigger deal for Jack Smith,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance added,