One indicted Trump lawyer's defense just got 'so much harder': Ex-prosecutor
August 18, 2023
The more information comes out about the activities of former President Donald Trump's legal adviser Ken Chesebro, the harder it is to envision any kind of legal defense that would save him from conviction in Georgia, argued former prosecutor Andrew Weissman on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" Friday.
Chesebro was recently revealed to have laid out a detailed memo explaining a method to overturn the election even he knew was illegal — and newer reporting today indicates he was on the Capitol grounds, tailing and filming far-right conspiracy theorist webcaster Alex Jones, on January 6.
"So let's talk about Chesebro, because this is actually new information too," said anchor Joy Reid. "So he is — and we didn't even really pay attention to him when we were talking through ... the first set of indictments — he was sort of, he seemed like a less big player, but now he seems like a big, big player. He's writing the memos that are saying, here's how we do the coup. But then he actually shows up at the Capitol. I believe he pleaded the Fifth when asked in one of the many proceedings, were you at the Capitol, he said, I plead the Fifth."
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"What do you make of the fact he's doing the intellectual plotting of the coup, and then showing up at the coup?" Reid asked Weissman, who was a key figure in former special counsel Robert Mueller's office investigating Trump's ties to Russia.
"So, one, I do think DOJ is fully aware of this, because remember, they had the full scope of all of the memos that he had written," said Weissman. "Remember, the January 6th Committee had some, but not all. But we learned from the indictment that Chesebro had written one more memo that was quite incriminating. And then The New York Times actually got their hands on it and published that. So I do think DOJ is very much on it. I think the fact that he actually showed up on January 6th makes his defense so much harder because it's not just an academic exercise. It's not just, oh, I had some good-faith legal argument. He's fully invested in seeing this happen. This is not normally what a lawyer might be like, oh, here's some argument, by the way, here's what I think the merits are or I think it may not fly. That's sort of one thing. When you're actually there on the scene with who else but Alex Jones, I mean, crazy man. I mean, that is such a terrible thing."
"I think if I were DOJ, if I'm looking at the list of people I want to charge and quickly, to put more pressure on them to cooperate, he would be one," Weissman continued. "[Former DOJ official] Jeff Clark would be another. These are people where charges could be so strong, and a good lawyer for them, one that's not MAGA-affiliated, might say to them, you know what, what side of this do you want to be on? And you really need to work something out."
Watch the video below or at the link.
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