Previously Secret Memo Aimed At Justifying Trump’s Coup Revealed
A ‘bold’ and ‘controversial plan’ to illegally keep former president* Trump in office referenced in his latest indictment for trying to steal the 2020 election has been revealed
A previously secret, newly released Trump campaign memo from December 6, 2020, originally authored by Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer that was allied with former twice-impeached, thrice-indicted president* Donald J. Trump, who was not named in Trump’s third indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election but is suspected to be co-conspirator 5, reportedly reveals new details of how the former president* and his team initiated the plan to interfere with the electoral college process to install fake Republican (GOP) electors in seven key swing states after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
The memo (PDF), deemed a “fraudulent elector memo” by federal prosecutors, revealed that Chesebro knew he was suggesting a “bold, controversial strategy” the U.S. Supreme Court would most likely reject, but that the plan was aimed at detailing a “messaging” strategy to focus on claims of voter fraud that would buy them more time to win litigation that would steal electoral votes from Biden to give the election to Trump. The plan was reportedly to have then-Vice President Mike Pence reject slates of legitimate, certified electors who cast their votes for Biden and replace them with fake elector votes for Trump. The plan failed because Pence refused to go along with it.
It turns out there were actually a few other memos as well.
Maggie Haberman from the New York Times (NYT) provided a few other interesting tidbits regarding Chesebro’s collusion with Trump and multiple efforts to subvert Democracy:
“It was not the first time Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.”
Per the NYT story, the December 6 memo vastly varied from the 1960 memo, morphing into what became referred to by prosecutors as a criminal plot to engineer a “fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.” It reveals the many ways that Chesebro colluded with Trump and his team to try and steal the 2020 election.
Ongoing Investigations Could Lead To More Indictments
A couple more tidbits from the NYT article:
“The false electors scheme was perhaps the most sprawling of Trump’s various efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved lawyers working on his campaign’s behalf across seven states, dozens of electors willing to claim that Trump — not Biden — had won their states, and open resistance from some of those potential electors that the plan could be illegal or even “appear treasonous.” In the end, it became the cornerstone of the indictment against Trump.
While another lawyer — John Eastman, described as Co-Conspirator 2 in the indictment — became a key figure who championed the plan and worked more directly with Trump on it, Chesebro was an architect of it. He was first enlisted by the Trump campaign in Wisconsin to help with a legal challenge to the results there.”
Even though Trump has been indicted, there is still an ongoing investigation, and more charges may be added later, including charges for his co-conspirators who were unnamed in the original indictment. Chesebro cited — incorrectly — writings by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, who he had worked with as a research assistant while studying law to bolster his argument about deadlines and procedures as potential fodder for a messaging strategy. Professor Tribe wasn’t too happy with Chesebro’s ‘gross misrepresentation of his scholarship.” His response to Chesebro, which he starts with “Anatomy of a Fraud,” can be found here.
The NYT goes on to note that Trump’s latest indictment also accuses him and his unindicted co-conspirators of acting with deception in recruiting some of the fraudulent electors, which included telling some of them that their votes for Trump would only be used if a court ruling handed victory of their state to Trump. That never happened. Trump sued 6 states over 60 times, and, with one exception which didn’t affect the outcome of the election, lost every one of them.
Chesebro knew his plan was controversial and illegal, but Trump decided to run with it anyway, and for that, he’s looking at serious jail time. The wheels of Justice can move frustratingly slow, but they are turning and they’re coming for Trump and all of his equally treasonous enablers and co-conspirators.
