On Friday, a second Donald Trump campaign lawyer agreed to testify for the prosecution in the case alleging the former US president orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Kenneth Chesebro, 62, was indicted with the former president and 17 others in August in the southern state.
Chesebro was suspected of coordinating a plan to submit a list of fictitious electors to Congress in order to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.
Jury selection for his trial began on Friday at Atlanta’s Fulton County Courthouse, but was quickly halted after Chesebro struck a surprise last-minute plea deal with prosecutors.
Chesebro was charged with seven counts, including racketeering, a crime punishable by prison term, as well as conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to file fraudulent documents.
In exchange for probation and the dismissal of the other charges, he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to file fraudulent documents.
Cheseboro’s guilty plea came the same day that another former Trump campaign attorney, Sidney Powell, agreed to a plea agreement with prosecutors in exchange for testifying in the other codefendants’ impending trials.
Powell, 68, was a prominent Trump supporter who promoted far-fetched conspiracy theories about Russian meddling in voting machines.
According to legal observers, the plea pleas are a potential setback for Trump, who is accused of directing a criminal conspiracy to change the 2020 election results in Georgia, which Biden won by approximately 12,000 votes.