COMMENTARY: Who is Kenneth Chesebro?

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By David H. Moskowitz

The layers of the onions in the fake elector plot in the 2020 presidential election are now shedding more light on Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who was working behind the scenes to help Donald Trump steal the election. The latest information came to light in a recent lawsuit settlement in Wisconsin.

Chesebro pled guilty in the Georgia RICO case, where Trump and 18 others were indicted. As part of that deal, Chesebro went to Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada, and appeared before grand juries and met with prosecutors. More evidence has now become available regarding his role in Trump’s effort to avoid the peaceful transfer of power after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

The Wisconsin Lawsuit

The legitimate electors sued the Wisconsin alternate electors, Jim Troupis (a lawyer and friend of Chesebro), and Chesebro. Additional information is now available from the settlement of this lawsuit on March 4, 2024.

As part of the settlement, Chesebro and Troupis agreed to submit additional texts that had not previously been known.

What has now come out is that after the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that there was no fraud in the election, Chesebro sent Troupis a screen shot of a text. The text suggests that Judge Brian Hagedorn, who cast a crucial vote in the case, should be pushed from a plane at a high altitude.

Chesebro’s Anonymous Twitter Account

We know that Chesebro in early December 2020 told the prosecutors in Michigan that he did not use social media. He denied having a twitter account and using any “alternate IDs”.

It is now clear that he had an anonymous account, BadgerPundit, which Chesebro used to post messages about the 2020 election in real time. Chesebro contends that the alternate elector strategy would only be used if there was a successful lawsuit proving election fraud. BadgerPundit tweeted, however, that the Republican-controlled state legislatures could appoint alternate electors even though Trump lost the popular vote in their state and there was no election fraud.

BadgerPundit tweeted more than 50 times that Vice President Pence had the authority to accept the certificates of the alternate electors even if Trump could not prove fraud in his lawsuits. He has said that he just happened to be near Alex Jones, a well-known conspiracy theorist, at the January 6 riot, but he posted a selfie with Jones in the background on BadgerPundit.

Chesebro testified to one version of his plan, while BadgerPundit pushed for a more aggressive, and highly illegal, strategy. Chesebro has not yet been charged with any crimes in Michigan.

The Wider Alternate Elector Strategy

It turns out that Chesebro was not just a rocking-chair general who was the strangest, but he also was the lieutenant on the front lines. He drafted the false voting certificate that the alternate electors signed. Chesebro made copies of the official 2016 electoral ballots for the 2020 alternate electors. There were slight changes in the language, but the false certificates looked authentic.

He defended the alternate elector strategy as being legal, though he told the Pennsylvania alternate electors that it was “dicey”. The dictionary definition of “dicey” is that it is risky, unpredictable, slightly dangerous, or uncertain. Only the Pennsylvania and the New Mexico alternate electors added disclaimers to the certificates that they signed. The alternate electors in the other five battleground states (Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada) committed crimes, and Chesebro aided and abetted them in doing so, and BadgerPundit knew that these were crimes.

Chesebro was also involved in the filing of the false alternate elector certificates in the National Archives, the Congress, and the federal district courts closest to the respective state capitols. In short, Chesebro was in implementing BadgerPundit’s clearly illegal strategy to prevent Biden from becoming the president.

The Case Against Chesebro

The case against Chesebro is strong because he developed the alternate elector strategy. Memos from another lawyer working for Trump — John Eastman — adopted Chesebro’s reasoning. Chesebro was the architect of the strategy for avoiding the results of the 2020 election.

In addition, Chesebro had met with Trump in the Oval Office on December 15, 2020, and he briefed Trump about the alternate elector scheme.

It is now clear that Chesebro’s role in attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election was much more significant than his guilty plea in Georgia would indicate.

Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

Chesebro now faces the possibility, even the likelihood, that he has forfeited his plea deal in Georgia and is subject to additional sanctions there, as well as clearly exposed to being indicted in the other states involved in his scheme.

Here is the takeaway from the Chesebro interaction with the legal system and the law.

Chesebro had an important role in pushing the misinformation-fueled claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. The alternate-elector scheme was based upon the presupposition that the 2020 election was fraudulent. This has led to a large segment of the electorate losing confidence in the electoral system and state legislators adopting devices to restrict the right to vote

Given that, thanks to the Wisconsin settlement, we now know about Chesebro’s enhanced role in the illegal conspiracy to avoid the peaceful transfer of power, and his failure to tell the truth, the whole truth, about his criminal activities, the Georgia plea deal is not an adequate sanction for his crimes. It is obvious that the punishment does not fit the crime which is far more extensive than the information that was available when the plea deal was structured.