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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Michigan AG executes search warrants on Google and X in ongoing 2020 | |
fake electors probe | |
By Marshall Cohen, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:07 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Google and X, formerly Twitter, recently provided hundreds of files to | |
Michigan prosecutors for their 2020 election subversion probe, | |
complying with search warrants that investigators obtained after � | |
belonging to pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who played a major role | |
in the fake electors plot. | |
The previously unreported warrants gave prosecutors access to new� | |
Chesebro emails and his private direct messages on Twitter. The | |
warrants make clear that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is | |
still gathering new information in her probe, nine months after with | |
forgery and other crimes for signing certificates falsely claiming | |
Donald Trump won the state in 2020. | |
A top member of her team that the investigation is ongoing and that | |
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, which is not | |
expected to go to trial before the November election. | |
Michigan is among a number of states to investigate fake electors | |
schemes. Just last week, Arizona prosecutors against the pro-Trump | |
electors there and allies of the former president who were involved in | |
the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. | |
According to the new documents provided to Michigan prosecutors, | |
which were obtained by CNN, Chesebro fruitlessly tried to bring | |
several controversial pro-Trump figures to Washington, DC, to watch his | |
“fake electors” strategy unfold on January 6, 2021. | |
He offered to pay for airfare and lodging at Trump’s upscale DC hotel | |
for former Milwaukee County Sheriff , as well as for the founder of | |
the conspiracy website, among others. It doesn’t appear that | |
anyone accepted his offers. | |
These messages also show how Chesebro aggressively reached out to | |
conservative pundits and right-wing figures after Trump lost the 2020 | |
election, prodding them to publicly promote his for how to subvert | |
the Electoral College process. | |
The search warrants to Google and X were executed in March, shortly | |
after CNN reported that Chesebro had concealed some of his social media | |
accounts from prosecutors during his last year. Chesebro has not | |
been charged in Michigan, and he has in Georgia’s election | |
interference probe. | |
Chesebro’s attorneys did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. | |
After this story was published, Chesebro attorney Manny Arora said on | |
MSNBC that he didn’t try to challenge the search warrants because he | |
had already voluntarily turned over much, if not all, of the materials | |
to investigators. | |
“There is no legal jeopardy — we have been cooperating the whole | |
time,” Arora said. “… In order to be a good prosecutor, you want | |
to make sure you get the search warrants, to just double check us, to | |
make sure we’ve given them everything … I don’t think it amounts | |
to a whole lot.” | |
Gining up support | |
The direct messages obtained by CNN chronicle how Chesebro, while | |
advising the Trump campaign on the fake electors plot, was also trying | |
to garner friendly news coverage by relentlessly pitching to | |
conservative radio hosts and pro-Trump pundits. | |
He shared what appeared to be unsolicited guidance to Gateway Pundit | |
founder Jim Hoft, advising him on how to frame his site’s coverage of | |
the January 6 certification proceeding in Congress. | |
“It would help to publicize that if (then-Vice President Mike) Pence | |
claims the power to resolve disputes about the electoral votes on Jan. | |
6, he’d simply be doing what (Thomas) Jefferson did,” Chesebro | |
told Hoft in a message on December 27, 2020. | |
“Excellent!! Thanks,” Hoft responded, using the @GatewayPundit | |
account. | |
Two days later, Chesebro told Hoft that he had reserved a block of | |
rooms at the Trump International Hotel, and that Hoft could stay there | |
“gratis” if he wanted. | |
Not long after that, Chesebro made similar offers to Clarke and his | |
wife, as well as to Wisconsin-based radio host Vicki McKenna and her | |
husband, according to emails obtained by CNN. | |
“Happy to pay for flights if that would help,” Chesebro told | |
McKenna, according to the documents. “It’s really no big deal; | |
I’ve done very, very well financially the last few years. And I would | |
feel great having you able to be at the center of the Trump | |
universe!” | |
Hoft informed Chesebro that he had his own lodging in DC. An attorney | |
for Hoft declined to comment for this story. McKenna didn’t respond | |
to requests for comment. | |
Interview with investigators | |
When Chesebro met with Nessel’s investigators in December, they asked | |
about his social media accounts. In addition to concealing his secret | |
Twitter account, Chesebro told investigators that he didn’t use | |
social media applications to send and receive private messages. | |
That denial is undercut by the materials X gave to investigators, which | |
contain more than 160 sent messages and more than 25 received messages | |
between 2014 and 2021, with most of them amid the 2020 election | |
fallout. | |
During the closed-door interview, an investigator asked Chesebro which | |
social media apps he used where people “can direct-message you, | |
private-message you,” according to a recording obtained by CNN. | |
Chesebro responded, “The only messaging apps I’ve used – like for | |
messages, right? I understand that there’s that capability – are | |
iMessage.” He further said, “I know there’s direct message | |
Twitter,” but he did not say that he used Twitter for direct | |
messaging. | |
Chesebro’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for | |
comment about the discrepancy. | |
Instant pushback | |
In the wake of the 2020 election, Chesebro also sent some direct | |
messages on Twitter to , a longtime writer on Wisconsin politics who | |
ran a conservative news site. Chesebro was trying to gin up coverage of | |
claims that there were irregularities in the Wisconsin results,� | |
according to documents obtained by CNN. | |
“You can spare me this stuff. Thanks. Trump lost,” Wigderson told | |
Chesebro, later adding, “I really don’t have time for conspiracy | |
theories. Thanks for understanding.” | |
Parts of this exchange were previously reported by The New York Times. | |
Chesebro also privately pinged several other Wisconsin political | |
pundits and legal scholars, including some whom he sparred with in | |
public Twitter posts. Most were ignored. | |
One of the attorneys Chesebro privately targeted was Daniel Rodriguez, | |
who attended Harvard Law School with Chesebro and is now a law� | |
professor at Northwestern University. On December 29, 2020, Chesebro | |
sent a link to Rodriguez about a new lawsuit from the Trump campaign | |
trying to overturn the Wisconsin results. Rodriguez replied with | |
“LOL.” | |
“I don’t remember this exchange exactly,” Rodriguez told CNN in | |
an email, “but my best guess is that the ‘LOL’ was because this | |
whole false electors lawsuit business was, and is, insane.” | |
The Wisconsin litigation – like dozens of other Trump election suits | |
– failed in court. | |
This story has been updated with additional details. | |
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the | |
educational background of Chesebro and Rodriguez. | |
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