Jury selection begins in Trump co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro’s trial – The Washington Post
ATLANTA — Donald Trump has yet to step foot inside the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta, where a grand jury two months ago indicted the former president and 18 allies on charges that they illegally conspired to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia.
But beginning Friday, hundreds of prospective jurors will be pressed on their views about the former president and what they know about his efforts to stay in power in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election as the first of his alleged co-conspirators prepares to stand trial in the coming days.
The trial of former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro will be the first legal test of the sweeping criminal racketeering case against Trump and his associates and one in which the former president will loom large, even if his own appearance before an Atlanta jury is probably many months away.
An initial 450 residents drawn from Atlanta and its immediate suburbs have been summoned Friday to fill out a lengthy survey with more than 80 questions as the court begins the arduous process of jury selection. The trial features an attorney who is hardly a household name but whom prosecutors allege was central to what they have claimed was a criminal enterprise with the goal of reversing Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Chesebro, a Harvard Law School graduate whose past work includes assisting then-Vice President Al Gore’s legal team during the 2000 recount of Florida’s presidential votes, is facing seven charges related to his alleged role as the legal architect of a plan to use Trump electors in Georgia and other key states to undermine legitimate 2020 electoral college votes to swing the election to the Republican nominee.
Through his attorneys, Chesebro has claimed he was merely offering legal opinions to his client, the Trump campaign. He has pleaded not guilty and sought speedy trial in the matter — leading Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee last month to sever his case from Trump and the other defendants, who do not yet have a trial date.
Chesebro had been scheduled to strand trial with Sidney Powell, another pro-Trump attorney implicated in the alleged conspiracy. But on Thursday, less than 24 hours before jurors were summoned in the case, Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges of illegally conspiring to subvert Georgia’s 2020 election.
The upcoming trial will not be limited to evidence against Chesebro. Because he was charged as part of what the indictment alleged was a broad “criminal organization” and “enterprise” that violated Georgia’s anti-racketeering statute, prosecutors say they will have to present their entire conspiracy case alleging criminal election interference. That requires telling the jury about evidence against all the defendants, including Trump.
McAfee has estimated the trial could take at least five months and has said he plans to move quickly through the jury selection process in hopes of seating 12 people and at least two alternates by Nov. 3 to meet the requirements of the speedy trial statute.
That decision has drawn complaints from Chesebro’s attorneys, who have argued their client could be negatively affected by a proceeding in which Trump, the star defendant in the case, will be effectively on trial even if he is not in the courtroom.
They have argued they need more time to question jurors on whether they truly can be fair and impartial in a proceeding involving the polarizing former president — a request McAfee has so far denied.
“There’s not going to be one person who hasn’t heard of Donald Trump. And here’s the thing about President Trump … There’s no one who doesn’t feel strongly about President Trump. You either love President Trump, and you’re willing to go into battle with him, or you strongly dislike him,” Scott Grubman, an attorney for Chesebro, said at a recent hearing. “The state might stand up and say, ‘Well, Donald Trump isn’t at the table.’ But he is. We know he is.”
Earlier this week, prosecutors and defense attorneys for Chesebro and Powell sparred over the jury questionnaire, which has not been publicly disclosed. McAfee read from the draft document in open court and was openly skeptical of several proposed defense queries asking potential jurors to share their opinions on blanket statements about Trump, the 2020 election and Trump’s political movement.
The proposed defense questions sought to solicit opinion on whether a potential juror believed Trump and his associates “tried to steal the election and throw out my vote” and if they agreed with the statement that “anyone who publicly complained that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump is guilty of spreading misinformation that undermines our democracy.”
Another proposed defense question asked potential jurors to agree or disagree with the statement: “I think MAGA Republicans are mostly made up of radicals and White supremacists.” The defense also wanted to ask potential jurors if they believe those who spread “political misinformation about elections” are protected by the First Amendment.
Prosecutors objected to the line of inquiry — accusing defense attorneys of improperly seeking to test “theories” about the case in front of prospective jurors.
McAfee said that he was “sympathetic” to the defense’s arguments that they were merely trying to “hone in on” what jurors truly believed but that the questions risked crossing “a hard line in the sand” about how far attorneys can go without asking jurors to prejudge a case. “We’re not going to come in here and ask you, ‘Do you think he’s guilty or not?’” McAfee said. “We don’t tell jurors to tell us how you’re going to vote.”
The defense also sought to ask potential jurors about their opinions on several public figures they said had been listed among the 180 potential prosecution witnesses in the case — a list that has not been publicly disclosed. They asked the judge to allow them to question jurors about Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), former Trump White House adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon.
Defense attorneys also sought to ask potential jurors about their views on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was publicly identified as a witness last week by prosecutors.
A video first reported by CNN and cited by prosecutors shows Chesebro marching alongside Jones to the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, as Jones led a group of Trump supporters toward the building in a protest that subsequently became violent. Prosecutors cited the footage in a court filing and said they are seeking to ask Jones about Chesebro’s participation in that march.
But McAfee again appeared skeptical of the defense’s approach. He described the proposed questions about certain witnesses as something akin to a “Gallup poll” that did not seem relevant “to the ultimate question of the impartiality of the juror” — though he conceded that attorneys could bring up those inquiries during individual questioning of potential jurors, which is scheduled to begin Monday.
McAfee, a 34-year-old former state and federal prosecutor who was appointed to the Fulton County bench earlier this year, has signaled his intention to strictly enforce the schedule as he seeks to get a jury and begin opening statements by early November. At a hearing earlier this month, McAfee said he plans to bring in prospective jurors in panels of 14 to be questioned individually beginning Monday.
For each panel, McAfee will ask jurors if they have qualifying hardships that would make it difficult for them to serve as a juror — including health problems or child-care issues. Then both sides — prosecution and defense — will each have one hour per panel of potential jurors to ask questions.
McAfee has said he hopes to go through a panel of 14 in the morning and another 14 in afternoon. He has said if it appears they are struggling to seat jurors, he plans to summon another 450 jurors on Oct. 27 to expand the pool.
The judge has said he is modeling his approach after jury selection in federal court, which tends to be speedier than in state court. In another high-profile racketeering case in Fulton County involving the rapper Young Thug, jury selection began in January and is still ongoing more than nine months later.
Grubman, Chesebro’s attorney, has repeatedly protested McAfee’s plan to expedite jury selection, telling the judge that it feels as though his client is being “punished” for invoking his right to a speedy trial. He has argued that going through jury selection too quickly could violate Chesebro’s due process rights.
“This is in some ways the case of the century. This is in some ways the case of a millennium for the way it’s been charged. And the bottom line is 4 minutes and 15 seconds per juror is not enough,” Grubman said at a recent hearing. “That’s unconstitutional.”
McAfee was unmoved — though he suggested he would be willing to “expand or contract” based on how questioning of the first panel goes Monday.
“There are competing values here,” McAfee said. “I don’t think it should be that one can invoke a speedy trial and then run out the clock, which I don’t think is what you want to do, but it is something I think I have to be mindful of.”
The latest: Trump entered a plea of not guilty in the Georgia election case. Last week, Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail on charges that he illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss. Authorities released his booking record — including his height and weight — and mug shot.
The charges: Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act. Read the full text of the Georgia indictment. Here’s a breakdown of the charges against Trump and a list of everyone else who was charged in the Georgia case. Trump now faces 91 total charges in four criminal cases.
The case: Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) has been investigating whether Trump and his associates broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Here’s what happens next in the Georgia case.
Can Trump still run for president? While it has never been attempted by a candidate from a major party before, Trump is allowed to run for president while under indictment — or even if he is convicted of a crime.