And the Rats Begin to Leave the Sinking Ship

We are now seeing guilty pleas and agreements to testify against other defendants.

Specifically we have seen lawyers Sidney "Kraken" Powell and Kenneth Chesebro (Cheese and Kraken?) pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

Now we know why neither of them waived their right to a speedy trial, they were planning to flip.

First the "Kraken":

Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, charged alongside the former president for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia, has pleaded guilty as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors just days before her trial was scheduled to start.

The conversion of Powell into a cooperating witness marks a major victory for the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, given Powell’s involvement in some of Trump’s most brazen schemes to reverse Trump’s election defeat – which she could now testify about.


Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit interference with election duties. She was sentenced to six years’ probation, a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution to the state, and is required to turn over documents and testify truthfully in her co-defendants’ trials. 

………

The most far-reaching consequence of Powell taking the plea deal could be her agreement to testify in future trials, given her proximity to Trump in the final weeks of his presidency and her close involvement in various schemes to reverse Trump’s election defeat.

Among other episodes, Powell was a key player in a contentious December 2020 meeting at the White House, where Trump named Powell a special counsel to investigate supposed election fraud, after she pitched a plan to suspend normal laws and use military force to seize voting machines.

And then the "Cheese":

Just before Christmas 2020, as President Donald J. Trump was running out of options to stave off losing the election, Kenneth Chesebro wrote an email to a group of other lawyers who were thinking of filing a last-ditch lawsuit to reverse Mr. Trump’s defeat.

The odds of winning the suit did not look good, Mr. Chesebro wrote, pegging them at only “1 percent.” But even though their efforts were unlikely to prevail in court, Mr. Chesebro suggested that Mr. Trump continue to push his baseless claims of fraud.

“The relevant analysis,” Mr. Chesebro argued, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times, “is political.”

On Friday, Mr. Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiring to file false documents in Georgia and agreed to cooperate with the local prosecutors who have charged Mr. Trump and 17 others in a sprawling racketeering indictment accusing them of tampering with the election in the state.

………

But Mr. Chesebro’s deal could present a more serious threat to Mr. Trump than the others given that he pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count that involved both the former president and some of his closest allies.

Mr. Chesebro also maintained an extensive correspondence with other pro-Trump lawyers charged in the case and played a central role in one of Mr. Trump’s chief plans to stay in office: a scheme to create slates of pro-Trump electors in states like Georgia, which Mr. Trump had actually lost.

………

If Mr. Chesebro were to testify that Mr. Trump’s lawsuits challenging his loss were not designed to win, but merely as ploys to sow doubt about the election, it could cut against Mr. Trump’s possible plan to use a so-called advice of counsel defense. That strategy involves blaming one’s lawyers for giving bad advice.

I'm still not optimistic that Donald Trump will ever see the inside of a prison cell, but I am less pessimistic.