Not looking good for Trumpy when co conspirators plead guilty, hey?
Oh, and they have agreed to testify!Hall and Powell had each originally been charged with seven felonies related to the Coffee County election equipment breach.[186][187] These felony charges were dropped when they instead pleaded guilty to misdemeanors: Hall to five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties[93] and Powell to six counts of intentionally interfering with the performance of election duties.[144]
Chesebro had originally been charged with seven felonies related to electoral vote obstruction. He pleaded guilty to only one of these felonies: conspiracy to commit filing false documents.[188] At the hearing where he pleaded guilty, he admitted to conspiring with Trump and Giuliani.[189] He must turn over all evidence in his possession.[188]
All four agreed to testify truthfully regarding defendants; not speak to witnesses, defendants, or media; and submit to the court a letter apologizing to the state and people of Georgia.[190][191][192][193] Hall wrote a few paragraphs, but Powell and Chesebro each wrote only one sentence.[194] Ellis read her apology aloud to the judge.[195]
Powell worked closely with the Trump campaign's legal team during the post-election period, and thus many people anticipate that she has significant information about Trump and Giuliani.[196] She is required to testify about the defendants, yet she may be able to plead the Fifth in response to some questions to avoid self-incrimination. (Although she no longer faces charges in Georgia, she may eventually face federal charges; the federal indictment for election obstruction describes her as Co-conspirator No. 3.)[197] Powell later promoted claims that Willis had "extorted" her into pleading guilty, despite having stated in a court filing that her plea had been made voluntarily, and continued to allege that the election was rigged.[198]
Roman, Cheeley, Hampton, and at least three other defendants rejected similar plea deals. As of October 25, 2023, Eastman had not been offered a deal;[199][200] on November 27, he asked for an extension on the deadline for deals. The Guardian reported that prosecutors did not intend to offer a deal to Trump, Giuliani, or Meadows.[149]
Proffer video leak[edit]
The four who pleaded guilty gave recorded interviews. Hampton's attorney, Jonathan Miller III, leaked these proffer videos to the media,[201][202] and parts of them were published on November 13:[193]
- On September 29, Scott Hall complained he was never reimbursed for his charter flight to Coffee County on January 7, 2021, which he said he did "for shits and giggles" as a "political tourist" and a "water boy". He said the "brain trust" in the Coffee County breach included co-defendant Robert Cheeley, who had asked Hall (a bail bondsman) to help him locate Ruby Freeman.
- On October 18, Sidney Powell told investigators that Giuliani, at a December 18, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office including Trump, had discussed accessing voting equipment. She said she still believed there was "machine fraud", though she also admitted she didn't know how the voting machines work, and that she personally would have considered using the military to seize voting machines if Trump had empowered her to do so by appointing her special counsel. She said Meadows told her the next morning: "You know, it's not going to happen." She said she called Trump for six minutes on December 24 "robably to see how he was doing and to say I'm sorry" for losing the legal challenges. She maintained that she had nothing to do with the Coffee County breach.
- On October 20, Kenneth Chesebro said he attended an Oval Office meeting on December 16, 2020, regarding Wisconsin, after which he briefed Trump on Arizona and told him the strategy he'd laid out in his November 18 memo. He said he played a role in sending the certificates for the Wisconsin slate of fake electors to Congress. He said he began communicating directly with John Eastman in late December and helped edit Eastman's December 23 memo. He said he flew to Capitol Hill on January 2, 2021, in case the Trump campaign invited him to participate in strategy meetings, which it did not.
- On October 23, Jenna Ellis told investigators that Trump's deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, had told her in December 2020 that Trump would refuse to leave office. Ellis said: "And he said to me, you know, in a kind of excited tone, 'Well, we don't care, and we're not going to leave.'" She said that co-defendant Ray Smith had asked Preston Haliburton, a lawyer involved in Trump's election challenges in Georgia, to get security footage from an Atlanta center where ballots were counted; this footage contained the footage of Moss and Freeman.
The day after the videos were published, Willis renewed her request for a protective order over discovery materials, this time on an emergency basis. Her court filing alleged that the leak was "clearly intended to intimidate witnesses in this case".[203] Most defense attorneys agreed to allow some material to be marked "sensitive". Though Miller had argued that "the public needs to know" about the testimony (he said it helped his client's case), McAfee disagreed that it was appropriate "to start litigating the case before we actually get inside of a courtroom".[201] On November 16, McAfee issued the protective order.[204]
