Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, with whom fellow lawyer John Eastman crafted a plan for former Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally reject certified election results on January 6, 2021, is trying to quash a subpoena from a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia.
In a new motion flagged by Politico's Kyle Cheney, Chesebro argues that he should not be compelled to testify in the grand jury's investigation of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 Georgia election results because he was acting in his capacity as an attorney and thus should not be forced to discuss advice he gave to his client.
"Any testimony from Mr. Chesebro would necessarily relate to Mr. Chesebro's representation of a former client -- the Trump Campaign -- a fact that is directly relevant to the legal analysis set forth below," the motion argues.
The motion then details arguments that Chesebro cannot be compelled to testify on grounds of both attorney-client privilege and by the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, in particular rules barring attorneys from revealing any information "to the disadvantage of a client" unless given permission to do so by that client.
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"Because the testimony that will be sought appears to fall squarely within the type of information that both the attorney-client privilege and NYRPC 1.6 was designed to protect, in that it would potentially be embarrassing and/or detrimental to his former client, and because the Trump Campaign has not given informed consent to its disclosure, Mr. Chesebro hereby moves for the Court to quash the subpoena in question," the motion concludes.
Nowhere in the motion does Chesebro address the fraud-crime exception to attorney-client privilege, which states that attorneys can be compelled to testify if it is believed their gave their client advice on committing a crime.
