Trump lawyers' plea deals have skewered his key defense: Columnist

Three lawyers in former President Donald Trump's inner circle — Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis — have now accepted guilty pleas in the Georgia election racketeering case, with Ellis in particular tearfully allocuting to wrongdoing.

That's a big problem for Trump, wrote conservative commentator David French for The New York Times, because it deprives him of his only credible defense in the case.

"To understand the potential significance of these plea agreements, it’s necessary to understand the importance of Trump’s legal team to Trump’s criminal defense," wrote French. "As I’ve explained in various pieces, and as the former federal prosecutor Ken White explained to me when I guest-hosted Ezra Klein’s podcast, proof of criminal intent is indispensable to the criminal cases against Trump, both in Georgia and in the federal election case. While the specific intent varies depending on the charge, each key claim requires proof of conscious wrongdoing — such as an intent to lie or the 'intent to have false votes cast.'"

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That means that Trump's best way out has always been to say he was just acting under the advice of counsel, doing in good faith what his lawyers told him he should do. But that means when Trump's lawyers plead guilty, it's far more damaging for him — because the defense necessarily requires attorney-client privilege to be waived. And so Trump's lawyers are in a unique position now where they can give insights into his state of mind as part of their cooperation.

"The crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege prevents a criminal defendant from shielding his communications with his lawyers when those communications were in furtherance of a criminal scheme," wrote French. "If Ellis, Powell or Chesebro can testify that the lawyers were operating at Trump’s direction — as opposed to Trump following their advice — then that testimony could help rebut Trump’s intent defense."

All of this, he concluded, means that "we receive further legal confirmation of a reality that should have been plainly obvious to each of us, even in the days and weeks immediately following the election" — namely, that rather than being a standard legal plan offered by attorneys, Trump's bid to throw out the 2020 election results "was a corrupt scheme empowered by an admitted criminal cabal."