During a recent discussion on MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner suggested that certain defendants from the criminal case recently brought in Georgia against former President Donald Trump and others could become “cooperating witnesses.” The criminal case alleges a conspiracy involving 19 defendants targeting the state’s election results from 2020, when Joe Biden scored a narrow victory in the state.
The specific individuals Kirschner referenced were those who served as sham electors on Trump’s behalf, joining the effort to assemble a purported slate of electoral votes from the state despite Biden’s win there. Multiple such individuals, including former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer, are among the defendants in Trump’s Georgia case.
Kirschner was specifically answering what sorts of advice he’d give a client after a judge rejected a push by co-defendant Mark Meadows to move the handling of the allegations against him to federal court. “Not only would I say, ‘It’s time to withdraw your motion, your attempt to have your case transferred to federal court, and it’s time to cut a deal,'” Kirschner said. “I mean, many of these fake electors have already gone on record as saying, ‘We were acting at Donald Trump’s direction.’ That perfectly positions them to be cooperating witnesses.”
There is, meanwhile, another push for moving to federal court that remains from Jeffrey Clark, a former official at the U.S. Justice Department, who served there when Trump was in office and supported the then-president’s attempts to stay in power. Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is the local prosecutor responsible for this sweeping criminal case, argued in a recent federal court filing that what Clark had been doing was shown by multiple sources to be plainly outside the scope of his and the Justice Department’s official responsibilities and work, making his allegations of criminality in Georgia outside the scope of what would ordinarily be subject to possible transfer to federal court. Clark pushed for outreach from the federal level to state officials on the basis of deceptive claims suggesting widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
“Many of these fake electors have already gone on record in saying: ‘We were acting at Donald Trump’s direction.’ That perfectly positions them to be cooperating witnesses.” @glennkirschner2 on why Trump’s co-defendants shouldn’t move their cases to federal court #KatiePhangShow pic.twitter.com/58LYTTx430
— The Katie Phang Show (@katiephangshow) September 10, 2023
