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Who allegedly conspired with Trump to overturn the 2020 election?

[August 02, 2023] By Jacqueline Thomsen, Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump allegedly conspired with six other allies in his failed bid to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, according to an indictment of the former president made public on Tuesday.

The six alleged co-conspirators are not named in the indictment and have not been charged by U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has been investigating Trump for his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss.

But the detailed descriptions of the actions of the six people closely track with publicly available knowledge of some Trump associates, who have all previously denied wrongdoing. Several media reports have identified co-conspirators based on the descriptions in the indictment.

POSSIBLE CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 1: RUDY GIULIANI

The former New York City mayor and Trump's former personal attorney has faced legal issues since working on Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Giuliani argued in federal court for Trump in an unsuccessful legal challenge to Pennsylvania ballots. He also played a prominent public role in pushing theories of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

He spoke at an event outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, alleging widespread election fraud ahead of the siege on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

The indictment describes someone with similar characteristics: "An attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendant's 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not."

Giuliani's law license has been suspended in New York and a Washington, D.C., attorney ethics committee last month recommended he be disbarred there.

Giuliani recently met voluntarily with prosecutors in Smith's office to answer their questions.

"Any allegations that Mayor Giuliani knowingly uttered false statements is emphatically denied," his attorney Robert Costello told Reuters.

"Every statement that Mayor Giuliani made was truthful and expressing his beliefs. He believed there was proof of election fraud, and I have seen the affidavits that back that up."

POSSIBLE CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 2: JOHN EASTMAN

John Eastman represented Trump in a long-shot lawsuit to overturn voting results in four states. The former Chapman University law professor has been under scrutiny by both Smith's office and Georgia prosecutors for penning a series of legal memos which claimed that former Vice President Mike Pence could reject electors from certain states to deny Democrat Joe Biden a majority of Electoral College vote.

His phone was seized by federal agents investigating his conduct in 2022.

The indictment describes someone with similar characteristics: An "attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election."

An attorney for Eastman recently told NBC News his legal team was sending a letter to federal and state prosecutors in a bid to convince them not to bring charges against their client.

Eastman is separately facing possible disbarment in California, after the state bar accused him of misleading courts and making false public statements about voter fraud. He has denied any misconduct.

John Eastman's attorney Charles Burnham said that the indictment "relies on a misleading presentation of the record to contrive criminal charges against presidential candidate Trump and to cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors."

POSSIBLE CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 3: SIDNEY POWELL

Sidney Powell played a leading role in promoting Trump's false fraud claims. She was part of a legal team that filed unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to overturn election results, and was sanctioned by a Michigan judge in one of those cases.

Powell has since been sued for defamation by the voting companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic over false claims she made about them rigging the 2020 election against Trump. She has denied that her statements were defamatory.

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Chapman University law professor John Eastman, next to U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, gestures as he speaks while Trump supporters gather ahead of his speech to contest the certification by the U.S. Congress of the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo

Texas bar officials also brought ethics charges against Powell in 2021. A state judge dismissed the case in March, saying there were "numerous defects" in the evidence. The state bar is appealing that ruling.

Tuesday's indictment describes someone with similar characteristics, noting that Trump privately told others that baseless election fraud claims by this co-conspirator "sounded crazy," but that he still “embraced and publicly amplified” the allegations.

Powell could not be immediately reached for comment.

POSSIBLE CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 4: JEFFREY BOSSERT CLARK

Jeffrey Clark is a former high-ranking Justice Department official who has been under investigation by federal prosecutors for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In the waning days of the Trump administration, Clark tried to convince Trump to oust Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen so that he could take over the department and help pursue Trump's baseless claims by opening an investigation into voter fraud in Georgia and other swing states.

Trump ultimately declined to fire Rosen and appoint Clark, after other top Justice Department officials threatened to resign in protest.

Federal agents investigating Clark's conduct seized his phone and searched his home in June of 2022. The D.C. Bar's disciplinary arm has since filed ethics charges against Clark for trying to pressure Justice Department officials to send a letter to lawmakers in Georgia echoing Trump's bogus claims of voting fraud.

The indictment describes someone with similar characteristics, who "attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election fraud investigations."

The indictment also directly cites handwritten notes that former acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donoghue kept to document both Clark's conduct and conversations with Trump.

Neither Clark nor his attorney responded to a request for comment. Clark has fought the ethics charges against him.

POSSIBLE CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 5: KENNETH CHESEBRO

Kenneth Chesebro is an attorney who allegedly helped devise a plan to submit fake slates of electors for Trump to obstruct Congress’s certification of the election results.

Prosecutors describe someone who acted similarly, who helped the Trump campaign with a recount in Wisconsin and drafted a legal memo that “evolved over time from a legal strategy to preserve the Defendant's rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors votes from being counted and certified.”

Under that theory, Pence would be able to appoint alternate slates of electors to help Trump win the election, overturning Biden’s victory.

Cheseboro could not be immediately reached for comment. He has previously defended his work with the Trump campaign.

CO-CONSPIRATOR NO. 6

A sixth unnamed co-conspirator is described in the indictment as being “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

That description did not clearly line up with Trump's highest-profile supporters.

According to Tuesday’s indictment, the political consultant identified attorneys who could help carry out a scheme to present fake electors to Congress as lawmakers certified the election results.

(Reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Andrew Goudsward Middletown, N.J. Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella in Silver Spring, M.D.; Editing by Michael Perry)

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