Two of the lawyers who tried to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election and pleaded guilty in the Georgia case have written an apology as part of their plea deal — with the weak letters only one sentence long.
The letters from Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro were obtained Thursday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request.
Neither letter recognizes the legitimacy of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 Georgia elections nor denounces the unfounded conspiracy theories they insisted on claiming that Trump was robbed of victory by fraud.
“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” Powell wrote in a letter dated Oct. 19 — the same day she pleaded guilty to six offences accuses her of conspiring to deliberately disrupt the performance of election duties.
Chesebro wrote, “I apologize to the citizens of the State of Georgia and Fulton County for my involvement in count 15 of the indictment.”
He wrote the letter on October 20, when he appeared in court plead guilty to one crime of conspiracy to file false documents.
Sidney Powell, pictured left in December 2020, was one of the most passionate supporters of Donald Trump's evidence-free claim of election fraud. Kenneth Chesebro (right) was one of the brains behind the strategy
Sidney Powell's one-sentence letter, written as part of her plea deal
Powell's photo from her August 23 booking in Fulton County, Georgia
Chesebro's letter was as brief as Powell's, and also handwritten on the day he entered his guilty plea
Chesebro's mugshot, taken on August 23 when he turned himself in in Fulton County, Georgia
A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the election interference case, declined to comment Thursday on the contents of the letters.
Powell and Chesebro were among four defendants who pleaded guilty in the case after reaching an agreement with prosecutors.
They were indicted in August along with Trump and others and accused of participating in a vast scheme to illegally keep the Republican in power.
The remaining 15 defendants — including Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — have all pleaded not guilty.
Each of the four who reached an agreement with prosecutors received sentences that included probation but no prison time. They were also allowed to plead guilty under Georgia's first-offender law, which means that if they complete their probation without violating the terms or committing a new crime, their records will be expunged.
The letters written by the other two defendants to plead guilty — Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis and bail bondsman Scott Hall — were longer and more specific.
Ellis read her letter in open court on October 24, in which she tearfully told the judge that she looked back with “deep remorse” on her involvement in challenging the election results.
“What I didn't do, but should have done, Your Honor, was make sure that the facts that the other lawyers were claiming were true were actually true,” she said.
“In the frantic pace of efforts to challenge the elections in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence.”
Hall, who pleaded guilty on September 29wrote in his five-paragraph letter to the citizens of Georgia: “I owe you an apology.”
“I wish I had never involved myself in the post-election activities that landed me in court,” he wrote, explaining that he became involved after seeing what he said were some irregularities.
Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other crimes.
Prosecutors allege she conspired with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to the election equipment. Coffee Provincein South Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there.
The indictment alleges that an unnamed individual sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unknown attorney with ties to Powell and the Trump campaign.
Chesebro was initially charged with racketeering and six other crimes.
Prosecutors allege that he unlawfully conspired with Trump and lawyers involved in his campaign to have the group of Georgia Republicans sign the false election certificate and submit it to various federal authorities. He also communicated with Trump campaign lawyers and Republican leaders in other swing states won by Biden to have those states also submit false voter rolls, prosecutors alleged.
Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
She had been charged with violating the state's anti-racketeering law and soliciting a violation of oath by a public official, both felonies.
The indictment in the sweeping case details a number of allegations against Ellis, including that she helped devise plans for how Congress could interfere with the certification of the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021, the day the election could be certified and Delay. a mob of Trump supporters eventually captured the U.S. Capitol.
And she is accused of encouraging state lawmakers to support fake, pro-Trump electors in multiple states.
Hall pleaded guilty to five felonies for his role in accessing election equipment in Coffee County.