Attorney Kenneth Chesebro was one of the architects of the Trump campaign’s 2020 fake electors scheme, which he explained in detail in leaked testimony last December. During his testimony before Michigan investigators, Chesebro insisted that he did not use Twitter and did not have any alternative handles on the platform, now known as X. However, a CNN investigation has turned up a Twitter account that appears to be connected to Chesebro. That account also pushed aspects of the coup plot that Chesebro denied promoting.
Chesebro has already faced charges in Georgia under the racketeering indictment connected with his role in the plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In October, Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of conspiracy, in exchange for a fine, probation, and a written apology.
However, the Georgia indictment also involved Chesebro’s actions in other states, including Michigan. If CNN is correct in its assessment, this lie could potentially affect Chesebro’s deal in Georgia as well as future charges in other states.
Chesebro has reportedly been cooperating with prosecutors in Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada as well as Georgia. With 24 of the fake electors facing indictments, Chesebro has emerged as a critical witness for the prosecution. In August 2023, a memo emerged in which Chesebro outlined what he described as “a bold, controversial strategy” to create Trump electors in states won by Joe Biden.
“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” wrote Chesebro. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”
His role as a central author of this scheme has made determining whom Chesebro spoke with a critical part of investigations. Following his guilty plea in Georgia, one of Chesebro’s attorneys said, “Everyone wants to talk about the memos and who he communicated with.”
This makes the idea that Chesebro was spreading his plot through social media highly important.
Not only has Chesebro told Michigan investigators that he didn’t use Twitter, he also reportedly claimed that he told the Trump campaign using fake electors to dispute the election was only a contingency plan, and that “state legislatures have no power to override the courts.”
These statements do not align with the opinions expressed by BadgerPundit, the X account that CNN indicates was connected to Chesebro. Within days of the 2020 election, BadgerPundit was tweeting claims that court decisions didn’t matter and that Republican-controlled legislatures could send in their own GOP electors.
The account has now been locked down, limiting the visibility of posts. However, these posts are still visible using the Wayback Machine, which archives the internet.
That tweet not only contradicts what Chesebro said he was telling the Trump campaign about court decisions, it also blows away the limits he claimed to have put on his scheme.
“I saw no scenario where Pence could count any vote for any state because there hadn’t been a court or a legislature in any state backing any of the alternate electors,” Chesebro told investigators in Michigan.
Those investigators are reportedly checking into the information that CNN unearthed. It’s unclear if Chesebro repeated these claims about his positions or denied using Twitter when talking with investigators in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
If this account does belong to Chesebro, it seems likely that investigators in several states will want to talk to him again. And a one-sentence apology probably isn’t going to cut it when it comes to lying to investigators.
