The lawyer pivotal to orchestrating the Trump campaign’s deceptive elector scheme in 2020 has emerged as a target in a criminal investigation in Nevada. Recently released transcripts from clandestine grand jury proceedings in Las Vegas revealed that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, had his name discreetly removed from the indictment in exchange for collaborating with authorities.
These documents, made public over the weekend, shed light on Chesebro’s late-November testimony before a grand jury in Clark County, Nevada. This testimony played a crucial role in the recent indictments of six Nevada Republicans. As noted by the Associated Press, these individuals, in a last-ditch effort, attempted to keep then-President Donald Trump in power by submitting a counterfeit electoral certificate to the National Archives.
Facing charges in state court for offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, the phony electors, deeply connected to the GOP at the state or county level, now find themselves in the crosshairs of a legal storm.
Chesebro’s cooperation agreement with Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General, Aaron Ford, follows a prior plea deal in Georgia, where he faced charges alongside Trump and 17 others for their alleged involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
In a riveting revelation during his grand jury testimony, Chesebro disclosed that he provided the state GOP with an organized, step-by-step explanation of the actions required to falsely declare Trump as the winner in Nevada. He admitted to the unique challenges Nevada posed within the broader fake elector plot across seven battleground states.
Dated November 14, the grand jury transcripts indicate that the proceedings unfolded almost three years after the six Nevada Republicans convened in Carson City on December 14, 2020, to sign the fraudulent certificate. The grand jury convened twice more before issuing the long-anticipated indictment.
Testimonies before the grand jury included accounts from a National Archives employee, a U.S. Postal Service inspector, investigators on the case, and Mark Wlaschin, Nevada’s deputy secretary of state for elections. Wlaschin described his disbelief upon receiving the false slate of electors claiming Trump’s victory in Nevada and promptly informed the National Archives of the impending submission of these dubious documents.
Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, one of the indicted fake electors who communicated directly with Trump about the plot, received a letter from Wlaschin returning the documents. The letter stated that the documents failed to meet statutory filing requirements. All six fake electors in Nevada entered not guilty pleas, setting the stage for a high-stakes trial scheduled for March.
