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Since I never heard of this fellow, I attempted to synopsize the main points of this article.

Exclusive: Trump Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro Talks About His Role In The Runup To Jan. 6

I attempted to put points in Chronological order to understand it better.

*'There was good reason to argue that under Article II, that Biden had not legitimately won the electoral votes,' Chesebro told TPM. 'I'm not saying that Trump deserved to win in each state, I'm saying it was legitimate to argue under Article II that there was a problem.'

*11-10 his work for Trump began with a request from an old friend of his named Jim Troupis, who contacted him on Nov. 10, 2020' Troupis, a former Wisconsin judge, and firm was repping Trump in the state. Chesebro agreed to help with a lawsuit'disqualifying hundreds of thousands of ballots in the state's two most Democratic counties.

*11-18 Chesebro first advocated for alternate slates of electors re: Jan 6. He sent Troupis a memo laying out the alternate elector scheme for the first time on Nov. 18

*12-9 Chesebro had authored a memo (On Dec 9th) for the Trump campaign laying out the steps that pro-Trump electors in each state that Biden had won would need to take in order to serve as potential alternates on Jan. 6. ' multiple slates of pro-Trump electors in states that the campaign baselessly claimed it had won would be sworn in.

*12-14 Chesebro and the team of Trump attorneys ultimately lost that bid to block Biden's win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Dec. 14 in a 4-3 ruling, the end of the line for Chesebro's efforts to push the alternate elector scheme through the courts. 'he focused on a more staid argument: that election measures taken to run the election in Wisconsin during COVID-19 invalidated Biden's victory.

*Chesebro laid out in detail in a memo what VP Mike Pence should do to subvert the election in messages to Rudy Giuliani and Trump legal advisor John Eastman.

*Chesebro told Eastman that 'the odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be 'wild' chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.' (There is nothing explaining this reference to "justices" in the article that I can see. Since he's talking to Eastman, I assume he's talking Supreme Court justices. So here is a fellow advocating putting the fear of chaos in the Supreme Court - but before Jan 6? I don't quite understand this one.)

*one (defensive argument by Chesebro) was to cite somewhat similar arguments made by liberals, like a column by Van Jones and Larry Lessig in favor of submitting alternate elector slates in Pennsylvania in case the state took weeks to count. (note - this sounds like it depended on a valid recount by the state)

*Chese bro mentee of Lawrence Tribe - Tribe characterized Chesebro as something of a legal nihilist ' someone with a penchant for helping 'the little guy,' but who remained focused on the 'gamesmanship' aspect of the law. 'I doubt that he cared whether the arguments were sound or not as long as that goal could be met of helping Trump to win the election,' Tribe said. 'That's probably why I wasn't too surprised to learn that he became very involved with Bitcoin.'

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/exclusive-tr...

Keep in mind, this story from Taking Points Memo is from 2022. As of this week, additional events have been added to the timeline of events indicating much higher criminal culpability for Chesebro.

Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen shared a clip from his forthcoming documentary A Storm Foretold with MSNBC on 8/16/2023 that showed Roger Stone dictating a "legistlative override" theory of flipping electoral college slates to an aide which was presumably shared via his private chat channel known as Friends of Stone (FOS -- could just as well be Full Of ______). That clip was recorded on November 5, 2020 -- two days AFTER the election but two days PRIOR to the election being comfortably called with high confidence for Biden on November 7.

What has also come to light is that Chesebro drafted a similar letter promoting the same theory on December 6 -- ONE DAY after Stone's letter was drafted and presumably shared. A couple of other clown lawyers in the Trump circus also circulated similar letters but it appears the Chesebro version became the template that drove discussions with Republican party leaders across multiple states, most notably Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia.

In hindsight, it seems ABSOLUTELY clear that Chesebro's version was adopted rather than Stone's version for two reasons:

1) Any such document known to have originated from Roger Stone would have raised suspicions / concerns even with die-hard Republicans. Not necessarily because they wouldn't believe the idiotic theory being promoted, only because EVERYONE knows Roger Stone has a 50 year career of toxicity and having his name on any public documents related to the scheme would immediately puncture the illusion of legality and propriety they were trying to promote with all of their court filings, etc.

2) Chesebro had one crucial factoid in his biography that made his name ideal to have on any "legistlative override" theory being circulated. He had worked as an aide for noted Harvard constitutional professor Laurence Tribe both during his law school stint and for 20 years after. Anyone doing a quick sanity check on the letter and the supposed author would find a quick reference to Laurence Tribe which would likely eliminate or at least delay any immediate visceral reaction of "BS" to the actual content of the letter, giving Team Coup more time to sow doubt and work with well connected allies to move the plot forward before people wised up.

In reality, Chesebro himself has virtually zero intellectual "brand" on line. His Wiki entry says he did work in numerous cases for Tribe in the areas of class action lawsuits and punitive damages but mentions no actual cases / plaintiffs. It also states he was a registered Democrat up until 2016. In 2016, he began doing work for conservative causes. In further hindsight, it seems likely he realized his longstanding professional link to Tribe could be more lucrative for him. Conservative organizations trying to reverse decades of legal precedents would find it very useful to cloak their flawed work attempting to reverse legal precedents with the imprimatur of someone previously associated with promoting those precedents.


WTH

What has also come to light is that Chesebro drafted a similar letter promoting the same theory on December 6 -- ONE DAY after Stone's letter was drafted and presumably shared

Did you mean November 6th instead of December 6th? I full well agree. I decided to put together the timeline because there is now enough info for it to get complicated and I want to know who did what. :)

Stone on film dictating: 'Any legislative body may decide on the basis of overwhelming evidence of fraud to send electors to the electoral college who accurately reflect the president's legitimate victory in their state which was illegally denied him through fraud,' Stone said, as an associate transcribed his words. 'We must be prepared to lobby our Republican legislatures ' by personal contact and by demonstrating the overwhelming will of the people in their state'in each state'that this may need to happen.'

And I agree that he adds that Harvard-Tribe elite law aura to the theory. At one point Chese is talking about chaos benefiting their Georgia case -and it looks like he's reacting to some rumors of coming chaos. Promoting the chaos is more like something Stone would do. Someone came up with the idea that chaos might throw the election into the House under the 12th Amendment. But you say there are a few more theorizers? OK.

I've got a weird feeling that C class theorizers ended up feeding the A class theorizers, who then expounded on the theory. Hell, for all we know they got it off the internet on discord. :)

Yup, it was November 6 that Chesebro copied Stone's homework and whitewashed it. IIRC from the MSNBC reporting, other similar drafts subsequently showed up from Eastman, Ellis and Powell in the next 2-3 days.


WTH

Yup, it was November 6 that Chesebro copied Stone's homework and whitewashed it. IIRC from the MSNBC reporting, other similar drafts subsequently showed up from Eastman, Ellis and Powell in the next 2-3 days.

Now I want to know where Stone got it from. :)

On January 6, photos and videos show Chesebro with (Alex)Jones for about an hour, starting a short distance from Capitol at around 1:40 p.m. As Jones and his entourage make their way to the Capitol, Chesebro followed with his phone out, seemingly recording Jones.

Videos reviewed by CNN show Chesebro with Jones in two sections of the restricted area around the Capitol cited in a federal indictment against Owen Shroyer ' another host on Infowars ' who was with Jones in those areas at the same time as Chesebro.

Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who previously served as the special counsel to the general counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN that Chesebro's presence on the Capitol grounds could be cited by prosecutors.

'Regardless of Chesebro's potential criminal liability for being in the restricted areas of Capitol grounds, this evidence could be cited by prosecutors as further proof that Chesebro was not operating as a bona fide legal advisor but rather was an activist aligned in the cause to overturn the election,' Goodman said. 'It undercuts defenses Chesebro might mount that he was functioning only in the role of providing legal advice for clients.'





https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/18/politics/kfile-kenn...

'Regardless of Chesebro's potential criminal liability for being in the restricted areas of Capitol grounds, this evidence could be cited by prosecutors as further proof that Chesebro was not operating as a bona fide legal advisor but rather was an activist aligned in the cause to overturn the election,' Goodman said. 'It undercuts defenses Chesebro might mount that he was functioning only in the role of providing legal advice for clients.'

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Absolutely. It confirms the underlying strategy involved three components -- pseudo legal maneuvers, thuggery and chaos -- whose degrees of adoption the coup planners expected to tweak in real time based on which approved to be most effective.

If they found enough ignorant and compliant tools within the state-level Republican parties to make the electoral slate swap happen, great. If it might be helpful to spook some of those officials with a little public violence in the streets in their capital city, we'll send a local chapter of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers your way. If that didn't work, completely disrupting the January 6 electoral college certification might trigger enough Congressional panic to conclude, "gee if THIS many people are unhappy, maybe there's something to this fraud thing" and postpone the certification, triggering more chaos which Trump could then use as a pretext to impose martial law then toss the actual election results by fiat.

After having worked within the "legal" team to initiate the legal fraud with a whitewashed version of a crackpot theory from a lifetime corrupt political operative, Chesebro was acting on January 6 as an eye on the thuggery / chaos elements for the legal team to confirm how well those two pillars were working and provide feedback if anything else might be done from Trump's end to further fan any flame that erupted at an opportune location for the coup effort. I would expect that any call and text message records from Chesebro's phone would confirm nearly continuous communication with members of the core team in the Whitehouse and the coup "war room" at the nearby hotel.


WTH

So, use chaos to 1. in Georgia Thomas would cause a created (likely voter fraud) case to be picked up, creating the conditions to suspend completing Presidential transfer, 2. with Pence, there's a chance of substituting the alternate fraudulent electoral slates, and the Presidency doesn't transfer, 3. create enough chaos that the electoral vote count is delayed for too long, with the hopes that 4. the alternate slates are somehow picked up, the vote is thrown into the 12th amendment (needs no majority or a tie) and the house votes with one vote per state - Trump wins. Not all the desired chaos is clear, nor is it clear how they think the alternate slates will be picked up after Pence doesn't accept the electoral votes.

I think the vote would stop if Pence declined, and there's a period of time for that vote to be counted, but I've never read someone knowledgeable predicting what a likely course would be. A lot of the present legislators seemed to be aware of schemes, so they may protest picking anyone else to count the votes, who knows? And it would seem you have to establish no majority or a tie to go to the twelfth, so it may just be a mess for a few days.

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