A previously secret memo uncovered by special counsel Jack Smith‘s Jan. 6 investigation outlined a pathway for former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 general election using “fake electors.”
The memo was reported last week when Trump was indicted on four charges relating to his behavior leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but the New York Times obtained a copy of the memo, authored by Trump-affiliated lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, on Tuesday night.
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Chesebro wrote in the memo, referred to by federal prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo,” that the strategy to convene a set of alternate electors would “likely” be rejected by the Supreme Court.
Still, Chesebro argued that even if the plan were thrown out in court, it would “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”
“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”
“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” he continued. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”
The memo specifically cites Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, an outspoken supporter of President Joe Biden, in rationalizing the strategy. Chesebro worked with Tribe to represent former Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 general election cycle.
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Tribe wrote Tuesday, however, that the Chesebro memo “relied on a gross misrepresentation of my scholarship.”
The special counsel’s office cited Chesebro as “co-conspirator 5” in the latest Trump indictment, but he has not yet been charged with a crime.
