Trump Lawyers Head Back To Court ... As Defendants

Go, Badgers!

“It would be nice to get some of those official-looking gold seals,” Wisconsin lawyer Ken Chesebro emailed former judge James Troupis on December 10, 2020.

Chesebro, the chief architect of the fake electors plot, had spent the prior month working alongside Troupis, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Trump campaign operative Mike Roman to convince Republican state party officials that they needed to swear in “alternate” slates of electors in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. And the legal genius behind this operation seemed to think that success might hang on slapping on a big gold sticker to make his Monopoly money documents look like legal tender.

Chesebro, Troupis, and Roman were indicted this week in Wisconsin and charged with one county of conspiracy to commit forgery. This is the second indictment for Chesebro, who was charged in the Fulton County RICO case and pled guilty to one count of felony conspiracy to file false documents. It’s the third go-round for Roman, who made the cut in Arizona as well. Troupis is a newbie, but hope springs eternal!

From previous indictments, as well as the House January 6 Committee’s report, we already knew a lot about this coup plot. But thanks to civil litigation in Wisconsin, a whole trove of internal campaign messages were released publicly in March. And these communications illustrate that the masterminds of this scheme harbored strong doubts about its legality — even as they assured the putative electors, most of whom were relatively unsophisticated, into serious legal jeopardy

And no amount of gold foil is going to make that kosher.

A Coup In Search of a Legal Theory

By November 11, it was clear that President Biden had won 306 electoral votes, to Trump’s 232. Republicans needed to flip 38 electoral votes, and voila! Trump could camp out in the Oval Office livetweeting Fox and Friends for another four years. And while Kraken kooks like Sidney Powell were out chasing non-existent Chinese bluetooth space laser fraud, Cheseboro had his eyes on a more tangible prize. He wanted Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role as President of the Senate, to declare that Trump had won the swing states — effectively overthrowing the government via legal technicality.

Chesebro convinced Trump that Pence had “sole power to both open and count the votes,” and that Pence could unilaterally decide to choose between two competing slates of electors in front of him, so long as they were both “official-looking.” Alternatively, he could refuse to count either slate, punting the decision to House Republicans. But that scheme would only work if the fake electors cast their votes on December 14, 2020, the same day the real electors were casting actual votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and then submitted the fraudulent certificates to Congress for Pence to either count, or cite as proof that there was a serious question as to the validity of the real ones.

As they worked to operationalize their harebrained scheme, Roman ran herd on the state party officials, ensuring that the would-be Trump electors who had appeared on official ballots showed up on the 14th to play their role. If any of the “electors” got squishy, Roman ensured that a MAGA diehard was swapped in to sign instead, even though such a substitution required gubernatorial signoff in Georgia.

Chesebro was tasked with dummying up phony certificates for the make-believe electors to sign, copying the language and formate of the real documents signed by the actual electors. Hence the need for the bling!

Coups 4 Dummies

The plan was bonkers, of course, and it’s not clear that anyone ever believed it was really legal. John Eastman, who took the opposite position in 2000 when it was Al Gore counting the votes, admitted to Pence’s lawyer Greg Jacob that they’d lose 9-0 at the Supreme Court if they were dumb enough to file a case testing their theory — which is exactly why they didn’t. But aside from being legally unsupportable, there were other, more mundane problems with this scheme.

Real electoral certificates are accompanied by an attestation of validity from the governor and state election officials. Chesebro’s MS Paint documents had no attestation, since the fake electors hadn’t been certified by anyone except themselves. Chesebro first suggested that they should blame COVID-19 for the deficiency, but eventually decided to simply omit that language entirely. (This wasn’t even the first time the Ivermectin Posse tried to use COVID as an excuse for not following the law, even as they claimed that making it easier to cast a ballot during a pandemic amounted to election fraud.)

On December 11, Chesebro circulated his final draft of those kinda-sorta-official-looking certificates. Line one begins with the cosplay electors solemnly affirming, under penalty of perjury, that they were “duly elected, qualified and acting Presidential Electors.” This was a problem, because the Trump campaign had been telling these folks that they were merely “contingent” electors, and that the certificates were merely an insurance policy in case a court or a Republican state legislature declared Trump the real victor.

The Pennsylvania fake electors were justifiably concerned that Chesebro’s certification contained no qualifying language. They wanted assurance that what they were doing “was lawful,” and they demanded that the Trump campaign agree to cover any and all of their “legal expenses” if they signed it.

At 2:17pm on Friday, December 11, the last business day before the fake electors were due to assemble and sign the false certification, Roman sent an urgent text asking Chesebro to get on a conference call with the Pennsylvania cosplay electors and tell them it was all very cool and very legal. Which Chesebro dutifully did.

Afterwards, the lawyer thought that the Pennsylvania folks might have had a point about signing a document saying they were the “duly elected” electors when they weren’t — particularly when six copies of said document were going to be delivered to the National Archives and Congress.

“Mike, I think the language at the start of the certificate should be changed in all the states,” Chesebro texted Roman. “Let’s look at the language carefully.”

“I dont” Roman shot back.

Perhaps Chesebro thought Roman was simply exhausted from working so hard as chief coordinator of Team Trump’s election-stealing ground game.

“I can help with drafting in a couple hours,” he volunteered cheerfully.

But it turns out that the problem wasn’t that Mike Roman was too busy.

“Fuck these guys,” Roman responded, which seems a little ungrateful to the people willing to commit crimes on your behalf. But the message came through loud and clear to Chesebro.

“Just placate pa? Ok,” Chesebro replied, noting that the Pennsylvania electors were “worried about ag asshole.” That last is a reference to Josh Shapiro, then the state’s Democratic attorney general, and now the governor. It’s an explicit admission that Chesebro understood that the signatories were subjecting themselves to potential criminal liability. It also undercuts Trump ongoing claim that all he did was direct that his subordinates “organize[] and submit[] contingent slates of electors from disputed States.” Because six of the seven states expressly submitted non-contingent slates, and when Ken Chesebro suggested they make them somewhat contingent, he was met with “fuck these guys.”

On Saturday, Chesebro once more proposed to Roman and the Trump campaign representative that they amend the certificates to protect signatories in other states.

“It strike[s] me that if inserting these few words is a good idea for PA, it might be worth suggesting to Electors in other states,” he wrote.

Unsurprisingly, it did not strike Team “Fuck These Guys” as “worth suggesting” to the other cosplay electors that they should ask for a legal disclaimer and indemnification from the Trump Campaign. So when Monday rolled around, only Pennsylvania got its exception. Their certificate read, “[O]n the understanding that if, as a result of a final non-appealable Court Order or other proceeding prescribed by law, we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified Electors.”  

Every other state’s certificate unequivocally asserted that a bunch of randos sneaking into Coat Closet #4 were the “duly elected” state electors. And, despite his acknowledged concern that what these randos were doing was a crime, Chesebro not only attended the make-believe electoral session, he actually filmed the whole thing.

(Apparently, while the Stringer Bell rule precludes taking notes, it is silent as to whether you should scrapbook your criminal conspiracy.)

Crime Wave

In January, Chesebro pled guilty in Georgia and was sentenced to five years’ probation, $5,000 in restitution, and 100 hours of community service. From this sweetheart deal, many inferred that the lawyer was singing like the proverbial canary and happy to turn on his co-conspirators.

Turns out those suspicions were (probably) correct! On April 23, 2024, Arizona AG Kris Mayes issued a nine-count indictment against Arizona’s cosplay electors, as well as against Trump campaign officials Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn, Mark Meadows, and Mr. “Fuck These Guys” himself. Chesebro, however, shows up as “Unindicted Coconspirator 4,” facing no criminal charges.

“It reeks of Ken Chesebro,” MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin quipped.

Meanwhile, Chesebro was fending off a civil suit in Wisconsin brought by the legitimate 2020 electors, who were represented by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. That case was settled in March, but as a condition of the settlement, Chesebro turned over “a trove of documents,” which is how we learned about his quest for a gold star.

We also learned that every decision was run by the Trump campaign, usually through Trump’s fixer Boris Epshteyn (himself indicted in Arizona), or some other flack with an @donaldtrump.com address. There’s was also at least one clandestine meeting between Chesebro, Troupis, and Trump himself, after which, “Reince [Priebus] was very explicit in his admonition that nothing about our meeting with the President can be shared with anyone.”

Might that be because Chesebro had a habit of telling his co-conspirators that their real goal was “to disrupt the Electoral Count Act?”

Maybe it was because even die-hard MAGA morons like Kelli Ward were privately concerned that what they were doing was “treasonous?” Cheseboro actually bolded that word himself in his email, noting helpfully that Ward and her fellow doubters had “a valid point.”

On Tuesday, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul indicted Cheseboro, Troupis, and Roman for conspiracy to commit forgery under Wisc. Stat. § 943.38(2), which makes it a crime to “possess… with intent to utter as genuine any forged writing or object,” such as a fake certification of electoral votes. That’s a Class H felony, punishable by a fine not to exceed $10,000 or imprisonment not to exceed 6 years, or both. Whatever deal Chesebro managed to strike in Arizona, he wasn’t able to replicate it in his home state. Perhaps because he was less than entirely candid about his online communications. Or maybe it’s because, having turned so much over in the civil suit, he had nothing left to give.

Maybe he would have gotten away with it if he’d gotten the sticker?