Prosecutors in the Georgia election interference case are seeking testimony from Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for the upcoming trial of lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
Prosecutors are also seeking testimony from former Wisconsin election official Andrew Hitt, one of the fake electors involved in the effort to upend the 2020 vote.
“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,” a petition filed by prosecutors says.
The petition adds that Jones “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself and Kenneth Chesebro and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multi-state, coordinated efforts” to influence the 2020 election in Georgia and in other states.
Trump and his allies are accused of engaging in a fake elector scheme in which they prepared fake certificates of electors in states where Trump lost in 2020 and said the electors were elected through the Electoral College. Prosecutors have said that Cheseboro helped devise and push the fringe legal theory behind the plan.
The former House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol had also tried to investigate Jones’ role in the effort to spread misinformation about the 2020 election.
Prosecutors say in another petition that McDaniel also has unique knowledge about Chesebro’s involvement in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
The petition says McDaniel will “provide evidence to the jury of Kenneth Chesebro’s involvement in the conspiracy, including, without limitation, as it relates to communication between co-defendants Donald Trump and John Eastman regarding the conspiracy” involving the fake elections in the 2020 election.
Hitt was a 2020 Trump elector in Wisconsin and former chair of his state’s branch of the Republican Party. Prosecutors say in another filing that Hitt talked with Chesebro when electors met, and his testimony will show that Chesebro was not just a lawyer providing advice.
“The State anticipates that Mr. Hitt will testify about his interactions with and related to Chesebro as it relates to Chesebro’s involvement in the scheme to have Trump presidential elector nominees convene and cast false Electoral College votes in Wisconsin on December 14, 2020,” they say.
To compel testimony from an out-of-state witness, two judges must sign off: the judge in the jurisdiction where the case is being prosecuted, Judge Scott McAfee, and a judge local to where the witness lives. For McDaniel, that’s Michigan; for Jones, that’s Travis County, Texas; for Hitt that’s Wisconsin. There are certificates that McAfee signed for McDaniel and Jones in the docket, but there wasn’t one for Hitt yet as of Tuesday afternoon.
NBC News has reached out for comment to a lawyer for Jones, the RNC and Hitt.
The joint trial of Cheseboro and Powell is set to begin on Oct. 23 while the remaining 17 defendants, including former President Donald Trump, will be tried later.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
