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Alyssa Pointer/Getty Images
Kenneth Chesbro. (Photo by Alyssa Pointer/Getty Images)
CNN
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The pro-Trump attorney who helped plan the 2020 election fraud conspiracy and has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy in Georgia is cooperating with Michigan and Wisconsin state investigators in hopes of avoiding more criminal charges. crime, multiple sources told CNN.
In a big change from 2020 – when the lawyer, Kenneth Chesbrowas at the center of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Electoral College and overturn his failure – Chesebro is currently assisting investigators in at least four states looking into the program.
Chesebro’s cooperation in Wisconsin is the first confirmation that the state attorney general’s office has conducted its own investigation into the false identification of pro-Trump voters. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has not publicly announced that an investigation is underway.
Chesebro also recently testified before a grand jury in Nevada, which indicted six fraudulent voters. hearing Wednesday by the prosecutor. In addition, Chesebro has been in contact with attorneys in Arizona, where he plans to stay for an interview as part of that state’s ongoing investigation into voter fraud.
CNN has already announced Chesebro as an unproven conspiracy expert in Jack Smith’s federal indictment against Trump, which accuses the former president of organizing fraudulent elections “is dismissed millions of voters” and remain in power. There is no indication that Chesebro is cooperating with the federal investigation, or that Smith has dropped the charges against him.
The word hole based on seven states and the 2020 program. Charges have been filed against voter fraud in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Research is underway in Arizona, New Mexico and now, apparently, Wisconsin. The seventh state in the land is Pennsylvania.
The Michigan investigation, led by state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, was the first in the country to make criminal charges. It now appears that the scope of Nessel’s investigation may be wider than previously known, and is looking at other figures who have links to the scheme behind the fake voters themselves.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office confirmed to CNN in an email this week that their investigation is ongoing.
The Wisconsin attorney general’s office declined to comment, as did Chesebro’s attorney.
Chesebro has entered into what are known as internal bidding agreements many states, which gives him immunity from prosecution, according to multiple sources. His cooperation with investigators in Michigan and Wisconsin has not been previously reported.
But cooperation with state prosecutors does not guarantee Chesebro will avoid criminal charges in any or all of the ongoing investigations, the sources warn.
Nessel’s ongoing investigation has resulted in 16 alleged voter fraud in Michigan. One agreed to cooperate in exchange for the dismissal of his case. The rest pleaded not guilty, and there are key hearings this month on their pleas. throw the box.
Sources told CNN that Nessel investigated another pro-Trump attorney, Ian Norton, who was in contact with Trump’s top brass after the 2020 election and along with the fake voters when they tried to enter the Michigan state house.
Inside payment cardagainst Michigan’s fake voters, prosecutors revealed how Norton tried to persuade a state trooper to let them into the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing – but they refused. This is an important part of the plan made by Chesebro and others planned: Federal law and Michigan law require voters to meet in the state, and Chesebro hoped that the law would be followed by the law as much as possible.
An attorney for Norton did not comment for this story.
After the 2020 election, Norton attended meetings with Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman where they discussed how to contest the results, according to Norton’s testimony to the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, revolution.
Norton also had a phone andSidney Powell, a right-wing attorney and conspiracy theorist, who pleaded guilty to the Georgia election charge. He asked her to join a lawsuit he filed in Michigan about the election annulment – he refused and filed another suit challenging the ruling. There was nowhere for useless subjects to go.
According to his congressional testimony, Northon had no relationship with Chesebro, except that a co-worker gave him one of Chesebro’s comments about the Electoral College after the election. 2020. Norton also said he learned from a Trump state congressman that fake voters will be meeting in Lansing.
“I was disappointed, I think, as someone who saw what happened on January 6 in the Capitol,” said Norton in the House committee in 2022. “My efforts on behalf of these private individuals is to encourage people to follow the law, not to encourage people to break it.”