'Avoid prison time': Trump memo writer Chesebro urged by lawyers to cooperate in Georgia

A trio of attorneys penned an open letter to indicted Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro on Thursday urging him to "swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man" as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act case against Chesebro, former President Donald Trump, and seventeen of their associates proceeds.

Chesebro is the author of a memo laying out a plan to send fraudulent slates of pro-Trump presidential electors to Washington following Trump's 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. In it, Chesebro suggests that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject Biden's electors from battleground states that Trump falsely insisted that he won.

"We have observed your ongoing travails in the criminal justice system at the federal and state level," wrote Katya Jestin, Marcus A.R. Childress and Caroline M. Darmody in the letter that was published by Just Security, a website that covers security and democracy.

"As experienced defense counsel, we write with serious concerns about your decision to proceed to trial in Georgia. Your current path represents a grave threat to your liberty. We urge you to reconsider for that purpose alone," the Just Security letter begins.

"We have watched as you were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia on August 14, thirteen days after being included as 'Co-Conspirator Five' in the federal indictment against former President Trump. We then watched as you pleaded not guilty in Fulton County, asserted your speedy trial rights under state law, filed an unsuccessful motion to sever your trial from that of co-defendant Sidney Powell, and most recently filed a motion to dismiss under the Supremacy Clause.

"We do not seek to weigh in on the merits of the individual Georgia charges pending against you. Instead, we are focused here on what the best legal advice would mean for someone in your position, and how to effectuate the optimal strategy."

Conceding that "we are not your lawyers" and that "nothing we write here is meant to suggest that you are not being represented ably by excellent counsel who are focused on your best interest," the three legal minds tell Chesebro, "we beseech you, think of one and only one thing: your liberty."

They continue, "As an appellate lawyer, you have probably not spent much time, or any time at all, inside a prison. But as seasoned defense counsel and former prosecutors, we have. Believe us when we tell you that prison is not where you want to spend any amount of time, much less a minimum of five years or the rest of your life."

They add, "You face criminal charges in the State of Georgia on seven counts. The state alleges that you conspired: to impersonate public officials by having impostors hold themselves out as qualified presidential electors; to forge and file a false document that purported to be a 'certificate' of Georgia’s 2020 electoral votes; and ultimately, to unlawfully change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

"The facts underlying such a conspiracy, if it indeed existed as alleged, could astonish all Americans, particularly the jurors, voters, and citizens of Georgia especially as you are an outsider who allegedly worked to disenfranchise members of their community."

Following a review of "the facts," the authors assert that "it appears that the prosecution in Fulton County, Georgia has a lot to work with. This means that, barring jury nullification, chances are you will be convicted. And, even if you really want to roll the dice with the jury, the federal case looms; that must be factored in here. Yours is a Damoclean situation."

Therefore, Chesebro's best course of action, the attorneys jointly conclude, is "to swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man."