Georgia DA seeks Ronna McDaniel, Alex Jones testimony for 2020 election trial

Fulton County prosecutors are seeking the testimony of Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones at the upcoming 2020 election interference trial for two of former President Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia, according to newly filed court documents. 

The documents show prosecutors also are seeking the testimony of Andrew Hitt, the former Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman. 

The trio are the latest individuals revealed from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) witness list for the Oct. 23 election subversion trial for two Trump-aligned lawyers, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. They have pleaded not guilty.  

Trump and the other co-defendants will go to trial at a later date. 

The new court documents indicate prosecutors want to call both McDaniel and Jones during the upcoming trial to establish Chesebro’s culpability. 

Chesebro, who faces seven criminal counts, is charged over the alternate elector plot. He drafted several memos and sent various emails devising the strategy, including ideas for how the alternate electors could mimic the real ones. 

Prosecutors previously indicated other trial witnesses on their list include Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer in Trump’s inner circle; Lin Wood, an attorney who filed lawsuits seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss; and multiple pro-Trump individuals in swing states who served as alternate electors. Chesebro’s attorney indicated last week that the state had handed over a list of 174 trial witnesses. 

In seeking McDaniels’s testimony, prosecutors said that on the day the alternate electors met, she spoke on the phone with Trump and attorney John Eastman, one of Chesebro’s co-defendants who was also involved with the strategy. Prosecutors said McDaniel also forwarded an email about the plan to Trump’s executive assistant. 

For Jones, prosecutors pointed to video footage, which CNN published in August, that appears to show Chesebro following the Infowars host around the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 attack. Jones, a noted conspiracy theorist, was also at the then-president’s rally earlier in the day. 

“Alex Jones will provide evidence to the jury of Kenneth Chesebro’s involvement in the conspiracy, including, without limitation, as it relates to his participation in the march on the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. 

The documents were filed in the middle of a pretrial hearing Tuesday, in which Chesebro and Powell argued their charges should be tossed for multiple reasons. 

Chesebro’s attorneys argued Chesebro acted only in his capacity as a lawyer, giving legal advice to fake electors but not directing them. Chesebro’s “granular” advice underscores his role as a lawyer, not a co-conspirator, Chesebro attorney Scott Grubman told Judge Scott McAfee. 

“The fact of the matter is that everything he sent was legal advice,” Grubman said. 

But testimony by Jones speaking to Chesebro’s Jan. 6 behavior could upend the assertion by Chesebro’s legal team that his only role in the alleged conspiracy was by impartially offering legal advice. 

Fulton County prosecutors pushed back on the arguments made by Chesebro’s attorneys by asserting that Chesebro isn’t charged with any offenses that proscribe free speech or expression; each of his charges are conspiracy counts, which are proved by establishing an unlawful agreement between two or more parties. 

Another hearing on Chesebro and Powell’s pretrial motions is set for Wednesday, the last scheduled hearing before the case is scheduled to head to trial later this month.