M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Donald Trump and his operatives were doing a lot more than saving face in court to keep the 45th president from giving up his White House post, according to a legal expert.
Leaked recordings published by CNN show pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro recounting the extent of the former president's supporters' effort in the wake of the 2020 election to institute alleged fake electors with critical certificates and supply the material to compel Vice President Mike Pence to hold off certifying the election to President-Elect Joe Biden.
"Well, those details are going to be very important for Jack Smith to prove his case and for state prosecutors like Fani Willis who has charged this same conduct to prove their case," according to former impeachment lawyer and longtime legal analyst Norm Eisen on CNN's "The Situation Room." "And the reason those details about the elaborate plan to get all the materials to Washington for January 6th matters so much is they go directly to the intent here."
Pressed for time before Jan. 6 certification was to take place, Chesebro is on record receiving an email sent by campaign official, Mike Roman, to see if there might be more means to move heaven and earth for Trump, according to the report.
“Can we charter a flight" reads the email Roman sent to Chesebro. "The only available commercial from MKE (Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport) to DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) arrives at 2130 tomorrow night,” Roman wrote to Chesebro on January 4 at 11:24 p.m."
Ultimately the documents were physically delivered to Washington by a Trump campaign staffer and a Wisconsin GOP official, CNN reported based on emails and what Chesebro said to state prosecutors.
Chesebro's insights, Eisen maintains, paint a vivid picture of the goings-on and flurry of efforts with many hands to secure some last dash effort to prevent Biden from taking over the presidency.
"This wasn't just as it started out a preventive measure in case Trump won court cases," he said. "This was an active alleged conspiracy to have Mike Pence and Congress block the rightful winner of the election from taking office and Jack Smith has said that that is a criminal conspiracy and it's hard to understand how lawyers and other professionals couldn't see why that was wrong."
