Lawyer Who Pushed Bogus Trump Elector Scheme Is Disbarred in New York
The decision by a New York State appellate court concluded a strange legal journey for a Harvard-educated lawyer who worked for former Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida and later evolved into a supporter of President Trump.
In a seven-page opinion, the court cited a criminal racketeering case centered on the fake electors in Georgia, where in 2023 Mr. Chesebro pleaded guilty.
The New York court said Thursday that Mr. Chesebro's 'criminal conduct — conspiracy to commit filing false documents — is unquestionably serious' and that he had undercut 'the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold.'
Mr. Chesebro, 64, could not immediately be reached for comment, and lawyers who have represented him did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The decision came nearly eight months after Mr. Chesebro was indefinitely barred from practicing law in New York because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The theory that Mr. Chesebro pushed centered on the certification process carried out on Jan. 6, 2021. He posited that Mike Pence, then the vice president, could count bogus slates of electors for Mr. Trump rather than the real ones from states that backed Joseph R. Biden Jr., or otherwise use the existence of the pro-Trump electors to delay the process.
In 2022, before Mr. Chesebro was indicted, he told Talking Points Memo that it was 'the duty of any attorney to leave no stone unturned in examining the legal options that exist in a particular situation.'
Other lawyers who supported Mr. Trump's efforts to reverse the 2020 election have also faced consequences. In 2023, Sidney K. Powell and Jenna Ellis, two members of Mr. Trump's legal team after the 2020 election, also pleaded guilty in election-interference cases in Georgia. Ms. Ellis's license to practice law in Colorado was suspended last year.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became Mr. Trump's legal browbeater, was barred from practicing in New York and in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chesebro was mentored at Harvard by Laurence H. Tribe, a leading liberal constitutional law scholar. With Mr. Tribe, Mr. Chesebro helped represent Mr. Gore, a Democrat, in the legal battle over the 2000 presidential election recount.
Mr. Tribe said Thursday that Mr. Chesebro was particularly skilled at 'coming up with arguments — sometimes too clever.'
'He's one of the few students who seriously disappointed me,' Mr. Tribe said, adding: 'He's a very smart person who learned how to manipulate and abuse the tools that the law gave him. And it was proved now that he can't be trusted to use those tools at all.'
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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