ATLANTA — Sidney Powell was present for a now-infamous December 2020 meeting at the White House where participants hatched far-fetched schemes to keep Donald Trump in power and was so tied to the then-president that he once considered naming her a special counsel to probe claims of election fraud.
Kenneth Chesebro was part of a small coterie of advisers who prosecutors say prodded Republicans in battleground states to submit slates of fake electors who would falsely assert that Trump, not Democrat Joe Biden, was victorious.
Yet rather than continue to stand behind Trump, the two lawyers cut deals last week with prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, agreeing to plead guilty and cooperate instead of face trial in the indictment that charged them, the ex-president and 16 others with illegally plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
The deals ensure the cooperation of two witnesses who could presumably offer insider accounts of the desperate scheming to help Trump remain president — a boon for prosecutors striving to develop incriminating evidence against higher-profile targets. Even so, it’s hard to forecast how much their assistance heightens the legal peril for Trump, especially since Powell’s own history of outlandish and ill-supported claims of fraud could open her to attacks on her credibility and a bruising cross-examination.
“It’s not a slam dunk that she is the knife to the heart of the former president, but it’s not a good day for him when she pleads guilty,” John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said of Powell. “She’s going to do something that hurts him. The level of the hurt, we don’t know yet.”
Neither agreement — Powell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, Chesebro to a felony — called for prison time. That’s a generous resolution for two defendants alleged to have played significant roles in what Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has called a “criminal racketeering enterprise to…
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