A former Trump lawyer who along with the former president is among 19 alleged co-defendants indicted in Georgia earlier this month over efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election asked a judge on Wednesday to unseal the identities of the unindicted co-conspirators in the case, according to court documents obtained by Lawfare’s Anna Bower.
Bower reports that attorney Kenneth Chesebro in a separate filing asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to sever his case from the rest of his defendants.
In his request to unseal the identities of the unindicted co-conspirators referred to in the indictment, Chesebro’s attorneys argued that the co-defendants’ identities are needed to challenge the conspiracy allegations.
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Chesebro’s lawyers in court filings contend that the “identity of the unindicted-but-known co-conspirators is needed for Mr. Chesebro to be able to adequately challenge the State as it attempts to meet its requirement to make a prima facie showing of the existence of the conspiracy.”
They note that without “knowing the identities of the co-conspirators, it will be near impossible to follow what statements or evidence come from the unindicted co-conspirators the State relies on in order to prove the underlying conspiracy.”
Chesebro’s lawyers said the “unindicted co-conspirators are de facto witnesses and subject to disclosure” and that their client “must be able to challenge whether the unindicted co- conspirators’ testimony is sufficiently corroborated.”
Chesebro was indicted on seven counts but lawyers in the motion to sever the case argue that the “remaining 34 counts of the indictment, many of which are of a similar nature to the crimes charged against Mr. Chesebro, do not involve Mr. Chesebro and are not relevant in the prosecution or defense of his trial.”
