From Bush v. Gore to ‘Stop the Steal’: Kenneth Chesebro’s Long, Strange Trip

DarkGamer@kbin.social to politics @lemmy.world – 86 points – From Bush v. Gore to ‘Stop the Steal’: Kenneth Chesebro’s Long, Strange Trip
nytimes.com

Mr. Chesebro, a buttoned-down Harvard lawyer, evolved from left-leaning jurist to key player in the Trump false electors scandal. What happened?

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What a bizarre guy. In case it wasn't clear, he was on Al Gore's legal team fighting Bush v. Gore. What the hell happened to him between then and now?

Speculation is he got rich on bitcoin and then got greedy and stupid.

The article speculates it may have been wealth from bitcoins combined with a thirst for power:

Mr. Chesebro’s 2014 investment in Bitcoin netted him “several million dollars,” he wrote in an email to Mr. Tribe that was quoted in a recent article in Air Mail. His marriage ended, and Mr. Chesebro acquired expensive homes in Boston and Manhattan, and a villa in Puerto Rico.
Soon after Mr. Chesebro’s big payday, his name began appearing on legal briefs filed by far-right conservatives, including John Eastman and a former Wisconsin judge, James Troupis. All three were described as co-conspirators in the federal indictment for the 2020 election scheme. He made hefty campaign donations to far-right Republicans, maxing out to Mr. Trump in 2020.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Mr. Chesebro, 62, a workaholic who brought platinum credentials to Mr. Trump’s shambolic legal team, is the third defendant to plead guilty for his role in what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to create fraudulent slates of pro-Trump electors in six states, including Georgia, that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won.

Mr. Chesebro has responded that in his work for Mr. Trump, he was providing him with the zealous legal advocacy that all clients deserve when he proposed a scheme that he acknowledged at the time “could appear treasonous.”

Mr. Chesebro graduated from law school in 1986 and secured a coveted job, clerking in Washington for U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard A. Gesell, who presided over some of the most pivotal political cases of the 1970s and 1980s.

Judge Gesell, who died in 1993, ruled against the Nixon administration’s effort to stop The Washington Post and The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers about America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Richard Daynard, a Northeastern University law professor and president of its Public Health Advocacy Institute, devised the legal strategy for suing the tobacco giants.

Soon after Mr. Chesebro’s big payday, his name began appearing on legal briefs filed by far-right conservatives, including John Eastman and a former Wisconsin judge, James Troupis.

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