The Georgia judge overseeing the state’s election interference case against President-elect Trump and several allies on Friday rejected a bid by former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebrough to vacate his guilty plea in the election interference case.
Chesebrough was initially indicted alongside Trump and 17 other conspirators for his efforts to keep Trump in power after he lost the White House in 2020. The lawyer reached a deal with prosecutors last year on the eve of his trial, which is set to be the first time the defendant has gone before a jury.
As part of the deal, Chesebrough agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to submit false documents. Prosecutors then dropped the other six charges he faced.
But last week, Trump’s former lawyer said his guilty plea should be vacated, with Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee in September dismissing several counts from the indictment — including the one to which Chesebrough had pleaded guilty.
McAfee on Friday denied the motion, calling it procedurally flawed “in more ways than one.”
“The defendant has already entered a plea in response to this indictment — a plea of guilty,” the judge wrote.
McAfee listed a slew of procedural issues, including that Chesebrough did not make the pretrial argument that ultimately led to the dismissal of the charges against the other defendants and that his motion came too late.
Chesebrough’s attorney noted that the motion could be considered a “motion to stay judgment,” or a challenge to the legality of the court’s ruling. However, McAfee noted that because Chesebrough was sentenced under Georgia’s first-offender statute — which “defers further proceedings while the charge remains pending for the duration of the sentence” — technically, no judgment has been entered against the former Trump lawyer.
“There is no final judgment,” McAfee wrote. “There can therefore be no motion to stay judgment here.”
After the 2020 election, Chesebrough drafted several memos detailing strategies for how lists of pro-Trump individuals could falsely claim to be valid voters in their states. He also faces charges in Wisconsin.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case, one of four criminal cases he faced before the election. After he was named president-elect, special counsel Jack Smith dismissed both federal cases, and his lawyers are seeking to overturn his New York conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The Georgia case has been put on hold while an appeals court considers a defense challenge seeking to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) removed from the case because of her relationship with the prosecutor she appointed to oversee it. The court had been scheduled to hear arguments in December but canceled the proceeding after Trump won the election; it has not been rescheduled.
