In the span of just one week, three former lawyers flipped on Donald Trump in a sweeping criminal case alleging a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
That string of dramatic U-turns has turned some of Trump’s most high-profile allies, including former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, into potential liabilities for the ex-president. Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, two former Trump campaign attorneys, also pleaded guilty.
It is still unclear if the lawyers, who have all agreed to testify truthfully in future proceedings, will seek to incriminate Trump in the Georgia case, legal experts said. But their deals could unleash a chain of similar agreements, increasing the number of potential witnesses prosecutors have on their side as they pursue the former president. CNN reported this week that at least six more of his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case are in talks for plea deals.
“There’s definitely a momentum in the Fulton County case and the momentum is very much in the district attorney’s favour,” said Clark Cunningham, law professor at Georgia State University. “If anything, the pace keeps picking up.”
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has relied on Georgia’s expansive racketeering laws in crafting the indictment, which captures a broad swath of alleged criminal activity and a large set of defendants featuring Trump’s most prominent lawyers and advisers in an alleged conspiracy with the former president at the centre.
“You flip one defendant, they can testify against another defendant . . . it is sometimes compared to dominoes,” said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney.
Renato Mariotti, former federal prosecutor, said one of the other lawyers charged in the Georgia case, who include Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman — two of the most vocal champions of the unsuccessful legal theories that Trump was cheated out of an election win — could be “the next domino to fall”.
In particular, Cunningham said, Ellis is “almost certainly a potentially damaging witness against Giuliani”. She appeared alongside the former New York City mayor at a hearing at the Georgia state capitol following the 2020 polls.
“So if her co-operation is enough to force Giuliani to co-operate, then that’s probably very bad for Trump because if there’s anybody who can incriminate him, it’s probably Giuliani,” Cunningham added.
Trump is expected to argue he merely followed advice from his lawyers — a theory that could be bolstered by the guilty pleas in Georgia, should he argue that his former counsel had acknowledged wrongdoing.
But Daniel Richman, professor at Columbia Law School, said that if the lawyers testified they were misled or did not know all the facts, that “really weakens that defence”. It will come down to whether they “are ready, willing and able to give serious testimony that implicates Trump”, he added.
Powell, Ellis and Chesebro will serve probation rather than jail time under what analysts deemed lenient agreements that may signify the trio’s high value as witnesses — or prosecutors’ eagerness to cut down on the case’s large number of defendants.
The guilty pleas may also be a boon for a separate federal criminal case against Trump over the 2020 election, which is being overseen by special counsel Jack Smith — if Smith can convince co-operating witnesses in Georgia to assist with his case.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff and a Georgia co-defendant, could seek a deal in Fulton County, analysts said, after ABC reported the Department of Justice had granted him immunity in the federal case in exchange for his testimony. His lawyer called the report “largely inaccurate”, while the DoJ declined to comment. Justice department filings have suggested Meadows could be a government witness in the federal case.
“It turns out that it’s a great tag team,” Cunningham said. “Jack Smith can’t flip people because he only has one defendant. Fani Willis is doing a classic [racketeering] prosecution where she’s working up the food chain to get the person on top and . . . that’s got to be helpful to Jack Smith.”
While broad by federal standards, Smith’s indictment is far narrower than the document unveiled in Georgia. The DoJ included just one defendant — Trump — and six unnamed co-conspirators, who are understood to include Powell and Chesebro. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both the state and federal election case, as well as two additional criminal cases he is facing in Miami federal court and New York state court.
Beyond the prospect of potential witnesses, federal prosecutors are looking to the guilty pleas in Georgia for other benefits. In a motion filed on Wednesday, Smith mentioned the deals when requesting Trump disclose evidence around the defence he intends to pursue. “[T]here is good reason to question its viability, especially because . . . three charged co-defendant attorneys pleaded guilty to committing crimes in connection with the 2020 election,” Smith said.
Richman said the DoJ is seeking to “put these guilty pleas into play”. While Smith has previously compelled Trump to share evidence, “now he’s saying it’s particularly important . . . because after all, these lawyers are starting to plead guilty”.
Read the full article here
