A lawyer working with former President Donald Trump’s campaign pitched the now-infamous plan to install slates of fake electors in swing states as “bold,” “controversial” and likely to be rejected by the Supreme Court, according to his memo.
The memo, published by The New York Times on Tuesday night, was written by Kenneth Chesebro and sent on Dec. 6, 2020, as the Trump campaign was working on multiple fronts to keep the former president in power after his electoral loss to Joe Biden. Prosecutors referenced the document as a key piece of evidence in the indictment of Trump last week, but this is the first time the memo has been made public.
Chesebro — identified as Co-Conspirator 5 in the government’s case against Trump — was a key architect of the effort to install the fake electors. The plan would have seen then-Vice President Mike Pence reject slates of legitimate, certified electors who cast their votes for Biden, and instead count those who voted for Trump.
The plan did not move ahead after Pence refused to go along with the plot.
But the existence of the memo demonstrates the extreme measures that Trump’s team pursued to subvert Biden’s victory and keep Trump in power.
“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on January 6,” Chesebro wrote in the document, one of several he ultimately crafted. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on December 14.”
The attorney went on to advise the campaign to spread the message that having the false electors vote for Trump was “routine” in case future lawsuits determined he had actually defeated Biden in the seven swing states.
“Even if, in the end, the Supreme Court would likely end up ruling that the power to count the votes … does not lie with the President of the Senate [Pence], but instead lies with Congress,” Chesebro said, “letting matters play out this way would guarantee that public attention would be riveted on the evidence of electoral abuses by the Democrats, and would also buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation.”
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has homed in on the memo, saying it quickly evolved “from a legal strategy to preserve [Trump’s] rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted.” The indictment also focuses on the deception Trump and his allies used to dupe fake electors into going along with the plan.
Trump has been indicted on four felony charges linked to multiple conspiracies to defraud the United States, obstruct an official proceeding and to deprive Americans of the right to vote.
Prosecutors are still collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses in the case, even though charges have been filed against Trump.