Trump lawyer tries to get Georgia indictment tossed based on clerical error

Ken Chesebro, a Donald Trump attorney charged along with the former president in the Georgia election racketeering case, has filed a long shot motion to dismiss his indictment, reported ABC News on Wednesday — based on a clerical technicality.

"In a filing Wednesday, his attorney alleged that Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who was brought in by the district attorney to help investigate the case, didn't file the oath of office required to join the DA's team," reported Olivia Rubin. "The motion alleges that Wade filled out the oath of office paperwork, but did not file it as required by law until just last week -- an error that Chesebro says makes Wade's work 'void as a matter of law.'"

"Nathan Wade, who has and continues to serve as lead counsel in this case -- including during the presentment of the case to the criminal grand jury and at the time the underlying indictment was returned -- was not an authorized public officer by Georgia law," said the filing.

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Chesebro was allegedly the author of a secret memo outlining a strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which even he acknowledged was not actually legal.

Former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons told ABC that this motion is unlikely to go anywhere. "If he was not sworn in, at worst it's embarrassing for the Fulton County DA's office but it would not affect the case," said Timmons. "The Georgia Supreme Court has held unanimously that the presence at the grand jury of individuals who are not sworn assistant district attorneys will not vitiate an otherwise valid indictment."

Last month, a judge in Georgia ruled that Chesebro, along with pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, must be tried separately from the former president and the other 16 co-defendants in the case, due to Georgia's speedy trial rights.