CNN Reveals ‘Burned’ Pro-Trump Lawyer Dishing Dirt on ‘Haphazard’ Fake Electors’ Plot Involving GOP Senator

CNN’s Marshall Cohen on Thursday detailed exclusive reporting on pro-Trump election lawyer Kenneth Chesebro revealing new details to Michigan prosecutors about the 2020 Trump campaign’s efforts to use fake electors to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Chesebro was indicted alongside Trump in the Georgia election case, but has since pleaded guilty to one felony count and accepted a plea bargain requiring him to testify against Trump and the other remaining defendants.

Bianna Golodryga introduced the new reporting, saying, “We start with breaking news in our law and justice lead. CNN has obtained exclusive recordings that reveal a chaotic last-ditch effort by former President Trump’s campaign to get fake elector ballots to D.C. They were trying to get the fake ballots to former Vice President Mike Pence in a final push to overturn the 2020 election.”

“The plan involved a haphazard chain of messengers, staffers for two sitting Republican members of Congress, and talk of even chartering a private jet. All of this to ensure the fake ballots from Michigan and Wisconsin got to the Capitol in time for the Electoral College certification on January 6th, 2021. Emails and recordings show new context in the dizzying scope of the unsuccessful fake electors’ plot,” Golodryga said as she introduced Cohen.

“Hey, Bianna. We’ve known bits and pieces of this story, but now we’re getting the full picture. And it comes from Ken Chesebro, who in many ways was the architect of the fake electors’ plot. CNN has obtained recordings of his recent interview with Michigan investigators and hundreds of emails that he also turned over. They are revealing the last-minute scramble on the eve of January 6th to get those fake certificates to Washington, DC,” Cohen began before playing a clip of Chesebro:

The general counsel, the Trump campaign is freaked out that Roman reported that the Michigan votes are still in the sorting facility in Michigan, which doesn’t look like they’re going to get to Pence in time. So the the general counsel, the campaign was alarmed and was chartering, they didn’t have to charter a jet, but they did commercial. This is like, yes. So this is a high-level decision to get the Michigan and Wisconsin votes, too. And they had to enlist, you know, a U.S. senator, too, to try to expedite it, to get it get it to Pence in time.

“Remember, they needed to get those ballots to the House floor because they wanted Mike Pence to throw out Biden’s real electors and replace them with Trump’s fake electors. So in the end, the campaign didn’t need to charter a jet. Staffers booked last-minute tickets on commercial flights, but they ferried those ballots to Washington, D.C. on January 5th. And once they got to D.C., there was a series of handoffs and couriers that even included some help from Senator Ron Johnson’s office. Those ballots eventually reached the U.S. Capitol in time, but Pence’s team said they didn’t want him. He refused to go along with the plan,” Cohen added.

“Fascinating new detail. Marshall, how does this all factor into Jack Smith’s criminal case against Trump?” Golodryga asked.

Cohen noted the details were briefly referenced in Smith’s indictment and help to show the scope of the pro-Trump effort to keep him in power. Golodryga then asked why Chesebro is suddenly dished all the dirt.

“He’s upset. You know, he thinks he got burned. And it is true that some Trump campaign lawyers told the January 6th Committee that they basically washed their hands of the fake electors’ plot. But the emails that we’ve obtained show that at least some of them were involved in the 11th-hour discussions about how to get the ballots to Pence. Here’s Chesebro again, telling Michigan prosecutors basically that in his view, he was thrown under the bus.,” Cohen replied, before playing another clip:

To have the three top campaign lawyers in interviews with Congress claim they pulled out of this on December 11th. And I ran off and did it with Giuliani, when in fact, they were day by day coordinating the efforts of more than a dozen people with the GOP and with the Trump campaign, for them to basically say they had nothing to do with it. And it’s because of me and Giuliani is that’s what really rankles. So I could have avoided all that. So it’s been a it’s been a real lesson in not working with people that you don’t know and you’re not sure you can trust because it really went south on me.

“Bianna, he says he learned the hard way and that’s probably why he’s now cooperating with criminal prosecutors in Michigan, Wisconsin and other key states where they tried to pull this off,” Cohen concluded.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.