The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot has revealed the identity of the Donald Trump ally accused of being the architect of the fake elector plot.
Kenneth Chesebro, a little-known attorney, allegedly led the scheme to plant fake electors in seven states where President Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, according to the committee’s bombshell report.
The plot involved these fake electors casting electoral college votes in Mr Trump’s favour based on false claims that then-vice president Mike Pence could “toss” out the votes of legitimate electors casting the vote of the will of the people in favour of Mr Biden come January 6.
The House committee’s damning report, released on Thursday, detailed additional information about the plot and the key players behind it.
The report states that Mr Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on January 6 2021 calling on his supporters to march to the Capitol and demand that Congress count what he falsely described as “lawfully slated” electors was not “off the cuff”.
Instead, it was “the culmination of a carefully planned scheme many weeks in the making”.
The report states that Mr Trump “oversaw” the scheme to put forward the fake electors in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
As part of the scheme, Mr Trump “spearheaded outreach aimed at numerous officials in States he lost but that had GOP-led legislatures, including in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona”.
The plot also involved attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and at points was aided by Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel, members of Congress and Republican leaders across the seven states – some of whom didn’t know exactly what they were being asked to do, the report states.
However, it was Mr Chesebro who the panel singled out as the overall leader of the plot – not attorney John Eastman who infamously created a step-by-step guide for how he claimed Mr Pence could overturn the election.
“The fake elector plan emerged from a series of legal memoranda written by an outside legal advisor to the Trump Campaign: Kenneth Chesebro,” the report states.
“Although John Eastman would have a more prominent role in advising President Trump in the days immediately before January 6th, Chesebro – an attorney based in Boston and New York recruited to assist the Trump Campaign as a volunteer legal advisor – was central to the creation of the plan.”
The report revealed the details of memos sent by Mr Chesebro on 18 November, 9 December and 13 December which it says “laid the plan’s foundation”.
In the first memo, Mr Chesebro suggested that the appointment of fake electors would be a means to buy Mr Trump time to fight the election result, the report reveals.
In the second memo on 9 December, Mr Chesebro made it clear “that the goal was having Congress act on the fake electoral votes”.
The third email – sent to Mr Giuliani one day before the fake electors met on 14 December – Mr Chesebro falsely suggested that Mr Pence could “toss out former Vice President Biden’s actual electoral votes for any State where the Trump Campaign organized fake electors, simply ‘because there are two slates of votes’,” the report states.
The report points out that “of course, there were never two slates of electoral votes” as the votes of fake electors were exactly that: fake.
The details of the plot are just some of the bombshell revelations to come out in the 845-page House select committee report, which marks the culmination of a 17-month-long investigation into the events leading up to and including 6 January 2021.
In the report, the panel states that Mr Trump and his allies engaged in at least 200 acts attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the two months between the November 2020 election and the day of the Capitol riot.
It finds that Mr Trump acted illegally by taking part in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election results, placing the blame for what happened that day firmly on his shoulders.
“That evidence has led to an overriding and straight forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report states.
“None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
As well as the actions of Mr Trump and his inner circle in the lead-up to January 6, the report also provides new details about the day itself – and the former president’s refusal to try to stop the insurrection.
When his supporters broke into the Capitol, Mr Trump watched it on TV and “did not contact a single top national security official during the day”.
“Not at the Pentagon, nor at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., the Capitol Police Department, or the D.C. Mayor’s office,” the report states, adding that he didn’t even try to contact Mr Pence to see if he was safe.
With no action coming from the head of state, the report revealed that the commander of the DC National Guard “strongly” considered going ahead and sending troops to the US Capitol without waiting for approval.
As a result of the former president’s actions, the panel recommends that Mr Trump – who just last month announced his 2024 White House run – is barred from being able to enter office ever again.
The report points to part of the US Constitution which states that an individual who has taken an oath to support the Constitution but has “engaged in an insurrection” or given “aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution” can be disqualified from taking office.
The panel also issues a grave warning about America’s future if Mr Trump and his inner circle are not held to account for their role in the insurrection.
“In the Committee’s judgment, based on all the evidence developed, President Trump believed then, and continues to believe now, that he is above the law, not bound by our Constitution and its explicit checks on Presidential authority. This recent Trump statement only heightens our concern about accountability,” the report states.
“If President Trump and the associates who assisted him in an effort to overturn the lawful outcome of the 2020 election are not ultimately held accountable under the law, their behavior may become a precedent and invitation to danger for future elections.
“A failure to hold them accountable now may ultimately lead to future unlawful efforts to overturn our elections, thereby threatening the security and viability of our Republic.”
Mr Trump reacted furiously to the report, taking to his platform Truth Social as soon as it was released to once again label the investigation a “witch hunt”.
“The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the “Peacefully and Patrioticly” words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud. WITCH HUNT!” he wrote.
The panel has made criminal referrals to the DOJ, calling for Mr Trump to face four criminal charges for his alleged role in the insurrection.
The charges are: obstruction of an official proceeding of the United States government, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to make a false statement, and inciting, assisting, or aid and comforting an insurrection.
It will now fall to the DOJ to decide whether or not to bring any criminal charges.
