# Chesebro,Powell and Others in Trump's Orbit **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [October 22, 2023, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920 "2023-10-22T13:52:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/1 "2023-10-22T13:52:02Z")
Thought about putting this in the Georgia indictment thread, but it might sort of derail it. And these two fools probably deserve their own thread anyway. Haven’t seen one. A question - Has anyone asked/discovered WHY these two clowns committed multiple crimes in an attempt to put Trump back in office? - I don’t think they are typical MAGA cultists. But could be wrong there. - If Trump promised something in return, well, they are fools. But they are fools anyway. - Did they just want to be part of Trumps administration if they could pull it off? - Are they just really, really stupid? - Perhaps a complete blind spot when it comes to right and wrong? But they’re attourneys for crying out loud. - Blackmail perhaps? There were plenty of people on Jan 6 that should have known better. LEO’s military and such. But I feel like these two, and the other 17 would have a little bit better grasp on the law, and aren’t wild eyed cultist. I know that the public has a short memory, but it stuns me that these professional, highly educated people would throw their careers and any respect away for a mad man. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/2 "2023-10-22T14:01:47Z")
Just plain ordinary people lacking any moral fiber and willing to do anything to win. They’d behave the same way to win a presidential election or a game of tic-tac-toe. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/3 "2023-10-22T14:12:50Z")
IMHO it was a combination of your 2nd and 5th bullet points plus a few other things. They likely believed that they would never actually be hauled to court, much less end up having to plead guilty. Add in a dash (or more) of good old fashioned greed, and there you have the recipe. ETA. There’s also the bizarre charisma, or whatever you want to call it, that Trump has. These two were clearly not the first two to fall under his “charm”. Trump’s whole life has been convincing a long string of people to make stupid decisions to further Trump’s interests rather than those of the people who decide to help him. And yet each subsequent person, despite likely knowing about those that have been previously screwed over, for some reason decide it isn’t going to happen to them. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/4 "2023-10-22T14:24:28Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > ETA. There’s also the bizarre charisma, or whatever you want to call it, that Trump has. Trumps ‘charisma’ could use a thread of it’s own. I’m baffled by that. Obama and many other have charisma. I don’t see a dash of it in Trump. He’s just a blundering buffoon. I’ll open this thread to talk about this idea of charisma if any one would like to contribute to that idea. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/5 "2023-10-22T14:32:30Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Trumps ‘charisma’ could use a thread of it’s own. I’m baffled by that. Obama and many other have charisma. I don’t see a dash of it in Trump. He’s just a blundering buffoon. > > I’ll open this thread to talk about this idea of charisma if any one would like to contribute to that idea. The difference, IMHO, between Trump’s charisma, and that of Obama, Bill Clinton, JFK, etc. isn’t that he has more of it, it’s that he’s willing to employ it ruthlessly to screw over other people, like Powell and Chesebro, and a long line of others. People who, due to tribalism, think that they won’t get screwed over by “one of their own” and so are willing to give Trump a pass. What they don’t realize is that Trump thinks of himself as a tribe of one, and as such he feels no loyalty to those who throw themselves under the bus to do favors for Trump. So ultimately it comes down to Powell and Chesebro and others like them thinking “it won’t happen to me”. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/6 "2023-10-22T14:41:18Z")
There’s been intermittent discussion of the nature of trump’s quasi-charisma in this thread: > [@How is trump still a viable candidate for president? Really, how?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-trump-still-a-viable-candidate-for-president-really-how/983949): > > I’m sort of considering this the third of a trilogy of recent trump “How?” threads, along with: [How can Trump get away with defaming Carroll as a liar today (5/11/2023)?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-trump-get-away-with-defaming-carroll-as-a-liar-today-5-11-2023/983888) How is Trump not guilty of manslaughter? (Not linked as it is a Pit thread) In the ‘manslaughter’ thread, I said this and @LSLGuy replied: In one where “Anyone (R)” gets more followers than “Anyone (D)” because of relentless propaganda and the eletoral advantages of gerrymanderng and the EC. I think there’s not much … **[Search results for ‘charism’ in that thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/search?expanded=true&q=charism%20topic%3A983949)**. There’s more back and forth nearby these posts that don’t user the terms “charism…” but are still on point about his (highly poisonous) secret sauce. Some of these posts are recent enough that that might be the place to take that discussion rather than here. Or open yet another “why … about trump?” thread. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/7 "2023-10-22T14:48:34Z")
Trump is using the same selection process that stage hypnotists use. Just get rid of the people who don’t do what they’re told. It’s not charisma, he just collects fools. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/8 "2023-10-22T14:50:42Z")
Chesbro, Powell, Rudy, and Pillow. They were all fairly successful in life and enthusiastically threw it all away for the likes of trump. Will we ever know the source of this power? It’s more than “he lets me be an asshole”, which is a lot of it. I’m just glad I’m not susceptible to his “charms”. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/9 "2023-10-22T15:04:01Z")
In the case of Powell, she has her own history of declaring that computers caused her to lose an election. I don’t remember what position the election was for (and Wikipedia doesn’t mention it), but it was in Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/10 "2023-10-22T15:05:53Z")
I am equally puzzled over how a snake like Trump keeps hypnotizing chimps to walk into his mouth. Here’s an article from Glenn Kirschner about how their plea deals and information might be used against Trump. It lays out how entangled they were with Trump. Would we believe them if they said they “got in too deep” and couldn’t escape? > **[Opinion | Two plea deals could be nails in Trump’s legal coffin](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kenneth-chesebro-sidney-powells-pleas-mean-trump-rcna121386)** > > Their guilty pleas have implications far beyond Georgia. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/11 "2023-10-22T15:08:26Z")
Thanks LSL. > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I’m just glad I’m not susceptible to his “charms”. Like most of us here on the SDMB (Fighting Ignorance), my BS meter is finely tuned, and turned up to high. Good point @FlikTheBlue Maybe it’s something like this - “I’m just the getaway driver for a bank robbery, I won’t go into the bank” ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/12 "2023-10-22T15:11:41Z")
There was a Texas based group that had been pushing the “rigged election, voting machines flip votes, Venezuela, yada yada” theories for around 20 years….but until 2020 they had never been successful in their attempts to recruit a major losing candidate to claim fraud. Powell and Lin Wood had attended events held by this group, which originated the wackiest of the “rigged election” theories. > **[How an obscure Texas security company helped convince Americans the 2020...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/trump-election-fraud-texas-businessman-ramsland-asog/)** > > Russell J. Ramsland Jr. has sold everything from Tex-Mex food to a light-therapy technology. Starting two years ago, he helped sell the notion that votes in U.S. elections were being manipulated. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/13 "2023-10-22T15:16:22Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > It lays out how entangled they were with Trump. Would we believe them if they said they “got in too deep” and couldn’t escape? Well, Trump is a salesman. And once they are hooked, many go all the way. He’s like a shady used car salesman. “You love the car, RIGHT? What’s another $50?” ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/14 "2023-10-22T15:20:00Z")
Yeah, he sells gold-plated lemons. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/15 "2023-10-22T15:34:35Z")
Yeah, Powell’s been a nut for a long time. For all of them, I suspect that there was a huge dose of “We’re all going to jail, if we _don’t_ get him re-elected, one way or the other” fear going on, after Jan 6. It’s a little bit conspiratorial on my own part, but I don’t believe for a second that they were free and clear right up until the elections in November, and then just chose to lose their minds during/after the elections. It seems like more than that to me. > [@enipla](#): > > Maybe it’s something like this - “I’m just the getaway driver for a bank robbery, I won’t go into the bank” For some of them, sure. But Chesebro & Powell are lawyers; they _knew_ how illegal all this was. And that’s why they’re making plea deals now- they know they’re dead to rights, and that the best option is to plea guilty and have some wiggle room, vs. getting nailed to the wall hard if they fight it out. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/16 "2023-10-22T15:52:21Z")
> [@bump](#): > > For some of them, sure. But Chesebro & Powell are lawyers; they _knew_ how illegal all this was. That’s what’s weird to me. They aren’t your average MAGA. Just wonder if they saw ANYTHING good for it for themselves. Perhaps they got so deep into this, they just kept digging. Pretty standard GOP MO. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/17 "2023-10-22T15:52:56Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > That’s what’s weird to me. They aren’t your average MAGA. Just wonder if they saw ANYTHING good for it for themselves. Perhaps not having their own faces eaten by the leopards? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/18 "2023-10-22T15:59:47Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Has anyone asked/discovered WHY these two clowns committed multiple crimes in an attempt to put Trump back in office? Yeah it’s not that complicated they were immoral people that wanted something, namely for Trump to carry on being president, presumably for the same combination of reasons as motivates all political actors, a combination of: a ideals (very bad racist ones in this case), personal advancement, and personal loyalty\*. And being immoral (and implicitly and explicitly following Trump’s desires in the matter) they the did immoral, illegal stuff to try and make that thing happen, in violation of both the written and unwritten protections in the US governmental system. Seeing as “we are going to do illegal immoral stuff to make sure we are elected, regardless of what the electorate says” is now pretty much the official platform of the GOP, it’s really important Trump and his enablers do serious time, at the very least. So next time this happens the mental image of Trump and Giuliani rotting in prison cell is in the back of th mind of the next GOP politician to try this (though I fear that will just mean they are cleverer about not leaving evidence of what they do) - - Whether you choose to call or charisma it is definitely true that Trump does have a knack for inspiring personal loyalty in people despite (or maybe because of?) showing absolutely none in return. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/19 "2023-10-22T16:03:45Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Perhaps not having their own faces eaten by the leopards? True, but instead of walking away from the leopards when they could, they got into the cage all while the ring leader of this circus stands aside and watches. I am starting to think that it is a blind spot. Any educated person that didn’t see what was going on has some phycological disabilities. Or they thought that this was gonna be big payout. They would be some sort of hero, or very rich. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920/20 "2023-10-22T16:04:52Z")
Chesebro is different from Powell. She’s nutsy. Chesebro had a pretty solid resume, and a good rep as a lawyer. He has a JD from Harvard, worked for Laurence Tribe, clerked for the federal judge who ruled for the Washington Post in the Pentagon Papers, and worked on _Bush v Gore_ for Gore. He was registered as a Democrat. Then in 2016 he re-registered as a Republican. I wonder what happened? ETA: his wiki article indicates he got divorced in 2016. Sounds like something was going on in his life around that time. > **[Kenneth Chesebro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Chesebro)** > > Kenneth John Chesebro (/ˈtʃɛzbroʊ/ CHEZ-broh;) is an American attorney most widely known for participating in the Trump fake electors plot that conspired to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election. On August 14, 2023, Chesebro was indicted along with eighteen others in the Georgia election racketeering prosecution. On October 20, 2023, he pled guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. As part of his plea bargain deal, Chesebro accepted five Kenneth Chesebr... [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chesebro-powell-and-others-in-trumps-orbit/991920.md?page=2)