He chose not to believe anyone who wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.
Ken Chesebro was one of those who were happy to give him what he wanted. And Trump listened:
Former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro has been talking to all kinds of legal inquiries andit seems there’s always something new for him to say. Here’s one of the latest:
Before a group of supportive lawyers entered the Oval Office for a photo-op with then-President Donald Trump in December 2020, they were given a clear instruction, according to one attendee: Don’t get Trump’s hopes up about overturning the election.One attorney, Jim Troupis, toed the line. He’d just finished leading Trump’s failed election challenge in Wisconsin, and bluntly told the president it was over in that state.
But when the conversation shifted to Arizona, attorney Kenneth Chesebro deviated from the plan. He told Trump he could still win – and explained how the “alternate electors” he helped assemble in Arizona and six other states gave Trump an opening to continue contesting the election until Congress certified the results on January 6, 2021.
Chesebro’s optimistic comments immediately created problems by apparently giving Trump renewed hope that he could still somehow stay in office. Former RNC chairman Reince Priebus left the meeting “extremely concerned” about the January 6 conversation. Priebus, a Wisconsin native who served as Trump’s first chief of staff, later warned Troupis and Chesebro not to tell anyone about what happened.
This dramatic account comes from Chesebro, who sat for an interview last week with Michigan state prosecutors investigating the fake electors plot. CNN has exclusively obtained audio of that interview, which includes previously unreported details about the pivotal Oval Office meeting.
The Michigan attorney general already charged the 16 Republican electors who cast sham ballots in Lansing, and CNN recently reported that the investigation is still ongoing. Fifteen of the electors pleaded not guilty; one got his charges dropped in a cooperation deal.
The “photo-op … gone south,” as Chesebro called the December 16, 2020, meeting, reveals a previously unknown instance of Trump hearing directly that he lost – which could factor into his federal election subversion trial. But it also highlights how others in Trump’s orbit leaned into his delusions and aided his quixotic effort to cling onto power…
“There was a conscious effort to deflect him from a sense of any possibility that he could pull out the election,” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors about the thinking going into the meet-and-greet with Trump. “…Our marching orders were: Don’t say anything that makes him feel more positive than the beginning of the meeting.’”
I’s unclear who gave the so-called “marching orders” to the group of pro-Trump attorneys.
Nonetheless, Chesebro told Trump he could still prevail in Arizona. He also spelled out the basics of the fake electors scheme, where Trump supporters in seven critical states cast faux ballots and signed phony certificates claiming they were the rightful electors.
“I ended up explaining that Arizona was still hypothetically possible — because the alternate electors had voted,” Chesebro told Michigan state investigators, later adding that this made it “clear (to Trump) in a way that maybe it hadn’t been before, that we had until January 6 to win.”
“And that, you know, created a real problem,” Chesebro added.
A source told CNN that a visibly angry Priebus, who arranged the photo-op for his home-state delegation, intervened to shut down the conversation after he saw Chesebro whispering to Trump about election procedures.
So I guess Trump is going to have to say that he was just listening to “his attorney”, Kenneth Chesebro, who told him he could win and we’re supposed to believe that it makes sense that he chose to believe every other legal and election adviser (except Giuliani and Sidney Powell)didn’t know what they were talking about.
I’m sure the cult will buy it. They believe everything he says. But it doesn’t seem to me that a jury, having taken an oath and been instructed by a judge, will see that as being reasonable. After all, this is the man who had been running the most powerful country in the world for four years. How is it possible that some obscure guy named Chesebro would be considered the expert when the entire DOJ, the Judiciary and his own white house counsel’s office made it very, very clear that he had lost the election and should concede?
But it does show one thing, doesn’t it? Trump knew about the alternate electors plot in December, didn’t he? And he embraced it.
Happy Hollandaise everybody! If you’ve a mind to throw something in the old stocking….