I’m not going to lie, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to use the phrase, “Who cut the Chese?” for the last two months but in light of yesterday’s news, I guess the question is more appropriately, “Who cut the Chese a plea deal?” The answer, of course, is Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, who has now managed to get both Sydney Powell and Kenneth Cheseboro — the two Georgia defendants who had elected to go to trial early under the state’s speedy trial law — to cooperate in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser or fewer charges (more on that in a bit).
This development is bad news for Trump, who no doubt planned to blame his lawyers for the whole coup scheme, claiming he thought the whole thing was legal because they told him so. Now, of course, these witnesses can testify about the conversations that took place, and what Trump actually knew and how he responded. And, since Powell and Cheseboro aren’t going to trial, Trump and his co-defendants won’t get to preview all of Willis’ evidence and have the opportunity to craft their defense around it. Sad!
One thing I am puzzled about is the plea deal for Powell. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors for intentionally interfering with the performance of election duties, for which she will serve six years on probation, and a fine of $6,000 (she also had to write an apology letter). That’s a pretty sweet deal. One the one hand, this makes sense, since Powell has a lot to offer Willis, and potentially Smith (whose indictment includes her as an unindicted co-conspirator): Though her role in the Fulton County indictment centered around the plot to hack voting equipment in Coffee County, Powell was a central player in the larger federal coup plot. On the other hand, her credibility is shot given her record of lies and kooky conspiracy theories, making her testimony not worth very much, it would seem to me. After all, Powell was involved in the slew of bogus voter fraud cases brought around the country (for which she was sanctioned by a Michigan federal court) and featured prominently in Dominion Voting System’s defamation claims against Fox News, which it settled for $787.5 million last spring (Dominion is now suing her directly). The deal just seems disproportionate, but maybe I’m missing something and Willis was able to get something really explosive from Powell.
Meanwhile, Cheseboro pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and a $5,000 fine, in exchange for 5 years of probation, 100 hours of community service, and an apology letter. Cheseboro is a much stronger witness than Powell (in my opinion), and the count to which he pleaded guilty and which he can testify to on behalf of the prosecution implicates Trump, coup architect John Eastman, and Rudy Giuliani, among others:
A final possible consequence of the plea deals is the timing of Trump’s Georgia trial. Powell and Cheseboro had pushed the trial date back for their codefendants, since Willis would have to try them first and present her whole case. Now that those are off the docket, it will be interesting to see whether Trump’s Georgia trial will end up happening before the federal trials, given that Judge Aileen Cannon seems to be dragging out the Mar-a-Lago case (surprise!) and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 case isn’t scheduled to take place until March of next year. That date that could be moved up, of course, if Trump violates the gag order she put in place against him, as Renato and I discussed in this week’s podcast (along with a now OBE discussion of Jim Jordan’s bid to become Speaker):
NEW! Freedom Academy Book Club Selection:
We had a great, if scary, book club discussion last week with author Steve Vladeck about the Supreme Court’s (ab)use of the shadow docket. Our next selection will be Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks by Scott Shapiro. Among his other areas of expertise, Scott has taught a computer hacking class (which I wanted to take) at Yale Law School, where he is a professor. He is also a hilarious follow on Twitter X, if you are still on that platform. We’ll plan to discuss the book in January, so you have plenty of time to dig in over the holidays!
My podcast appearances this week:
I was a guest on a live recording of Talking Feds at the Texas Tribune Festival, about the impact of Trumpism on law enforcement. We had some…thoughts about Merrick Garland.
Other articles worth reading:
In my last class lesson on Russia’s information warfare effort, Project Lakhta, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a recent Fifth Circuit ruling that could make it harder for government agencies to work with social media companies to combat disinformation leading into the next election. Steve Vladeck’s recent poston One First about government“jawboning” goes into the legal arguments in more detail
Upcoming events:
Zoom Office Hours, Friday, October 27 at 9 a.m. EDT: Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers at 6 a.m.
November 14, 2 p.m. EST: Class guest speaker Colin Clarke, Director of Research for The Soufan Group. I thought of Colin as I was writing my last post on Yevgeny Prigozhin, as he has followed and written about Prigozhin’s The Wagner Group over the last several years. He will offer some great insight connecting what we are covering in class with the war in Ukraine and Russia’s global operations. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers at 11 a.m.
That’s it for this week!
In addition the your great writing and obvious knowledge, one can the things I like best about you is your down-to-earth sense of humor.
I wondered how long it would be before someone used the "Who cut the Chese?" line.