'We had until January 6 to win': Trump lawyer lays out plot to overturn election in leaked audio

13 December 2023

In leaked recordings from conversations with prosecutors in Michigan, former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro explained how he sold former President Donald Trump false hope about overturning the 2020 presidential election.

CNN published the audio on Wednesday. Chesebro can be heard talking about an Oval Office photo op with then-lame duck President Trump. During his interactions with Trump, Chesebro apparently defied instructions from fellow attorney Jim Troupis — who tried and failed to challenge election results in the battleground state of Wisconsin — to not say anything to the outgoing president to get his hopes up about overturning the election.

"I ended up explaining that Arizona was still hypothetically possible — because the alternate electors had voted," Chesebro said in one of the recordings. "Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg and [Harvard law professor emeritus] Laurence Tribe had both written that January 6 was the real deadline."

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"So it was, I think clear in a way that maybe it hadn't been before that we had until January 6 to win," Chesebro said, while clarifying his comments emphasizing the importance of the January 6 deadline.

According to CNN, Chesebro was chastised after his interaction with Trump by former White House Chief of Staff (and former Republican National Committee chairman) Reince Priebus, who was reportedly "visibly angry" following Chesebro's conversation.

"Right after that meeting, Troupis said Reince Priebus was extremely concerned with what I told the president about Arizona and about the real deadline being January 6, and that he was going to do damage control," Chesebro is heard saying. "Reince was going to follow up and was going to try to mitigate whatever optimism I had created."

Chesebro, along with other Trump attorneys like John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, was a primary architect of the so-called "fake electors" plot. That plot involved GOP activists from swing states Joe Biden narrowly won presenting themselves as members of that state's electoral college, whereupon they would cast their electoral votes for Donald Trump in defiance of their state's voters.

After entering his guilty plea in Fulton County District Court in Georgia in late October, Chesebro has since cooperated with investigators in four other states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. While cooperation won't guarantee that Chesebro avoids jail time altogether, it could result in lesser sentences.

To listen to the recordings, scroll up or click this link.

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