Kenneth Chesebro | |
---|---|
Born | Kenneth John Chesebro June 5, 1961 Wisconsin, US |
Education | Northwestern University (BS) Harvard University (JD) |
Political party | Democratic (before 2016) Independent (2016–present) |
Criminal charges | 7 Georgia state charges:[1]
|
Criminal penalty |
|
Criminal status | Plea bargain, pleaded guilty to: conspiracy to commit filing false documents |
Spouse |
Emily Stevens
(m. 1994; div. 2016) |
Kenneth John Chesebro (/ˈtʃɛzbroʊ/ CHEZ-broh;[2] born June 5, 1961) is an American attorney[3][4] known as the architect of the Trump fake electors plot[5] that conspired to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election. On August 14, 2023, Chesebro was indicted along with eighteen others in the Georgia election racketeering prosecution.[6]
On October 20, 2023, he pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.[7] As part of his plea bargain, Chesebro accepted five years of probation, $5,000 in restitution, 100 hours of community service, and agreed to testify against Donald Trump and the remaining defendants.[8]
Kenneth Chesebro was born in 1961 and raised in Wisconsin Rapids, about 100 miles north of Madison, Wisconsin. His father was a music teacher and his mother was a speech therapist.
Chesebro earned a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University.[3] He earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in the class of 1986 that included Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Jeffrey Toobin.[3] During law school, Chesebro, Kagan, and Ron Klain were research assistants for Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe.[9][10]
After law school, Chesebro clerked for Judge Gerhard Gesell in Washington, D.C. Gesell was known as a liberal jurist who presided over high-profile cases including the Nixon administration's case involving the Pentagon papers, where he ruled in favor of the Washington Post.[9]
In 1987, Chesebro opened his own law firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[11] For at least the next 13 years he continued to do occasional work with Laurence Tribe, including working on Bush v. Gore in support of Vice President Gore.[12] Tribe said that Chesebro was "obviously bright and seemingly decent."[13] Tribe also stated that "even though we used to be friends, I really think he should never again be allowed to practice law."[10]
Starting in 2016, Chesebro's legal work began to support conservative causes and prominent Republicans. That year, along with John Eastman, he filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in a case involving citizenship of residents of American Samoa. In 2018, he represented Republican politicians, including Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, in a Utah voting rights case.[10]
Until 2016, Chesebro was a registered Democrat.[9] He changed his registration in Massachusetts to unaffiliated. A few years later he moved to New York where he also registered as unaffiliated.[9]
Chesebro skewered the "Reagan Administration ideologues and their colleagues in Congress" in a 1993 article in the American University Law Review.[10] Later in the 1990s, he donated to Bill Clinton. In 2000 Chesebro donated to John Kerry's senate campaign. In 2004, he was an enthusiastic fan of Barack Obama, after Obama's convention speech that year.[9] He also donated to Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold.[10]
In 2016, Chesebro began supporting Republicans, with contributions to J. D. Vance, Ron Johnson, and others.[13] Senator Johnson had arrived in the Senate after defeating Feingold in Chesebro's native state of Wisconsin. In 2020, Chesebro donated $2,800 to the Trump campaign.[9]
Chesebro has donated more than $50,000 to Republicans.[10]
On March 1, 2022, Chesebro was subpoenaed by the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.[30] He fought the subpoena[31] but testified on October 26.[32] When asked where he was the first week of January 2021 and specifically on January 6, Chesebro invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.[28] This committee concluded that he was the chief architect of the fake electors scheme used by Trump and his allies in an attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election.[33][34]
In July 2022, he was subpoenaed by a grand jury in relation to the 2020 Georgia election investigation.[35]
On August 14, 2023, Chesebro was indicted along with 18 other people in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia.[36] He exercised his right to demand a speedy trial,[37] and his trial was set for October 23, 2023.[38] On September 1, he pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges, including a violation of Georgia's RICO act and conspiracy to commit forgery, in the Georgia election subversion case, and he also waived his right to an arraignment hearing.[39]
On September 21, his lawyers asked for five pieces of communication — including an email mentioned in the indictment as having been sent by Chesebro to Eastman on January 4, 2021 — to be excluded from evidence. They argued that the documents were protected by attorney-client privilege.[40] On October 10, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued that attorney-client privilege should not apply because the documents did not advise Trump on litigation but rather gave him a political strategy to use in Congress to interrupt the transfer of power to Biden. In this argument, she echoed prior rulings of U.S. District Judge David Carter.[41]
On October 20, as jury selection began for his speedy trial, Chesebro took a last-minute plea deal, including a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents.[42]
On August 1, 2023, Trump was indicted in the federal prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Chesebro has been identified as Co-Conspirator 5.[43][44]
Napoli Shkolnik, a New York-based personal injury firm, hired Chesebro in October 2022 to lead their Law and Motions Department. He moved from New York to Puerto Rico, where other attorneys for the firm live. He was released by the firm after being criminally charged for his part in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.[9]
In 1994, Chesebro married Emily Stevens,[11] a physician. They divorced in 2016.[45]
Chesebro was an early bitcoin investor, netting several million dollars from a 2014 investment. Some former colleagues suggest this new-found wealth triggered his dramatic life-style change; he began to travel extensively, bought houses, divorced, and started donating to Republicans.[46][47]