The six “co-conspirators” from the latest Trump indictment have been identified, and the list contains advisors at the highest levels of his administration who were close to him in the days and weeks following the 2020 election.
While the indictment by special counsel Jack Smith did not list the names of President Trump’s “co-conspirators”, details describing their interactions with the president align with those already publicly listed about his closest advisors. Among those described are advisor Rudy Giuliani, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro. A sixth “co-conspirator” listed as a political consultant has not yet been determined.
Court filings describe Giuliani as “an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.” The former New York mayor became a central figure in President Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure electors in several states to switch their votes from Joe Biden to him, and court documents reference a call with Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) that was previously known to be made by Giuliani. The indictment also describes a presentation made by Giuliani to Georgia legislators claiming that more than 10,000 dead individuals cast votes in the presidential election.
Eastman, who is a confirmed “co-conspirator” according to his attorney, is described by prosecutors as “an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.” Eastman was known to be the originator of a theory that former Vice President Mike Pence could defy his ceremonial duties during the Electoral College proceedings on January 6, 2021, and demand that the outcome conclude President Trump had won the election. Eastman’s theory led President Trump to pressure Pence to change the outcome, which he refused to do, leading to a very public split between the two.
A third “co-conspirator”, Sidney Powell, is described in the indictment as “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the defendant embraced and publicly Amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.” Powell was the leading voice among Trump’s defenders to question the integrity of voting machines which she claimed incorrectly tabulated vote counts in multiple states.
Clark was the individual who President Trump considered appointing as U.S. Attorney General in the days following the election as a way to forward claims of voter fraud. Clark notably sent a letter to Georgia’s election officials asking them to hold off on certifying the results. Chesebro was found to be the individual behind coordinating slates of alternate electors across multiple states. The last individual, still undetermined, operated as a consultant who partnered with Chesebro to find attorneys willing to serve as alternate electors.