Trump-world Legal Memo that a judge ruled was likely part of a Criminal Effort to Overturn Election

[kpete]

Memo Outlines ‘Likely’ Felonies by Donald Trump

The document: It’s a Dec. 13, 2020, email from a little-known attorney who had been advising Donald Trump’s legal team, Kenneth Chesebro. He sent it to Rudy Giuliani, sketching out a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. He dubbed it the “‘President of the Senate’ strategy.”

Chesebro's memo became public last week as a little-noticed exhibit in a legal battle between the Jan. 6 select committee and John Eastman, who conferred with Chesebro about that last-ditch strategy to delay or prevent the certification of Biden’s election. U.S. District Court Judge David Carter described the memo in his March ruling as perhaps “the first time members of President Trump’s team transformed a legal interpretation of the Electoral Count Act” — the law that governs the transition of power — into a day-by-day plan of action.” Carter wrote in his opinion that this memo “likely furthered the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.” He ordered it released to the select committee under the "crime-fraud" exception to attorney client privilege.

The strategy: The plan offered by Chesebro depended on the existence of competing slates of presidential electors in a handful of states where Biden won the popular vote. In fact, just a day after Chesebro sent his memo to Giuliani, pro-Trump activists gathered in several state capitals and signed documents falsely claiming to be the true presidential electors from their states.

Then, Chesebro’s strategy required Pence to “firmly take the position that “he, and he alone, is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes, but to count them—including making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes.”

Other elements:

Jan 3-5: Chesebro suggested that members of the Senate hold hearings in the days before the Jan. 6 session. In particular, he wanted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), then chair of the Judiciary Committee, to focus on Pence’s power to count electoral votes. A Graham spokesman emphasized that he held no hearings on this subject at the time. His office has declined to say whether any of Trump’s lawyers approached him about the plan.

Jan. 6: Chesebro suggested that Pence should immediately recuse from running the electoral vote count, citing a “conflict of interest” and hand the gavel to Sen. Chuck Grassley or another senior Republican senator. Then, that senator would lead the count but refuse to accept any electors in the states Trump was contesting. Instead, the senator would contend that if those states wanted to be counted, they had to rerun their elections, engage in more litigation or have their legislatures appoint new electors.

Post-Jan. 6: Here Chesebro essentially suggests to let the chips fall. The Supreme Court might step in and overrule the Trump gambit or sidestep it by declaring it “nonjusticiable.” But he said even trying and failing would be a worthy attempt and could resolve in unpredictable ways, such as the selection of Pence as president.

The select committee’s view: The trafficking by Trump allies in these theories prove they planned to repeatedly violate the Electoral Count Act to impose their fringe interpretation of the law and keep Trump in power, House counsel Doug Letter wrote in last week’s filing. Chesebro was also behind arguments for Trump allies to send “competing” slates of electors to Congress, creating the very controversy those allies said was necessary for Pence to assert control.

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Link to tweet

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Link to tweet

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https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-1-2022/jan-6-strategy-memo/
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.350.2.pdf

[Bucky]

1. Am I the only one reading his name as "Cheese Bro"?

These fuckers are evil, but still manage to be cartoonish at the same time.

[Walleye]

3. Me too. Couldn't help it

[txwhitedove]

9. Yes, even after checked to see if I read it right. Cheesy.

[nuxvomica]

10. Yeah, and he's from Wisconsin, so a "cheese bro"

Ever since I learned a guy named Pecker ran the National Enquirer, I've been sensitive to the possibility this is all a simulation and the programmers got lazy about coming up with names.

[underpants]

2. Excellent but disturbing info

Thanks.

[exboyfil]

4. I wish there was a way to squeeze Grassley

I bet he was approached and gave his assent to this plan (note he said he was going to do the vote count before Pence corrected him).

The Iowa Senate Democratic candidate should consider demagoguing the hell out of this during the election. Maybe Grassley will make a mistake and admit to something. Not likely though.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2021/01/05/grassley-suggests-he-may-preside-over-senate-debate-on-electoral-college-votes/

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he would preside over the U.S. Senate debate surrounding disputes of the 2020 election results if Vice President Mike Pence does not show up.

He suggested Pence was not expected to attend but Grassley’s staff later said that was a “misinterpretation” and that Pence was expected to be there.

[agingdem]

6. so this is what Jamie Raskin meant when he said

January 6 "revelations would blow the roof off the house"..the J6 committee intends to name names..small/medium/big/enormous names and a before/during/after timeline of who/what/when/how of the coup...this is why Graham and Grassley are shrieking committee bias.. this is why the 100 House representatives who signed on to Navarro's ridiculous "Green Bay Sweep" are soiling their pants...why Jordan, McCarthy, Meadows, Biggs, et al. are in CYA desperation mode...why Eastman is filing go-nowhere appeals to keep his January 6 Trump communications from seeing the light of day...I do love the smell of Republican panic...

[towerbum]

8. chuckles needs to be added to j-6 committee list ?

[Nevilledog]

5. Remember Grassley?

Link to tweet

[Baked Potato]

7. Since they were going to halt the count at Arizona,

that is why the Ninja BS was in place and took so long. That was going to be the long delay needed while T***P assumed role as dictator. They all need some prison time.

[ancianita]

11. If this doesn't show conspiracy to NULLIFY the popular vote, nothing will.

[FakeNoose]

12. No Vice President who lost his re-election had to recuse for the certification process

This idea died on the vine because there was no precedent for a VP who lost - as Pence did - to refuse to certify the election for the candidate who beat him. Also there was no precedent for recusal.

Walter Mondale was Vice President in 1980 when he and Jimmy Carter failed to be re-elected for a 2nd term. And yet Mondale presided over the Electoral College certification of Reagan and GHW Bush. Did Mondale have to recuse himself? Of course not.

Same thing happened in 1992 when VP Dan Quayle presided over the Electoral College certification of Bill Clinton and Al Gore's election. Quayle had no reason to recuse himself, and he didn't.

This memo from Kenneth Cheseboro was just pissin' in the wind, and Mike Pence KNEW IT!