In criminal cases, it’s routine for defendants to raise legal challenges against the charges ahead of any potential trial, to try and weaken the government’s case or, ideally for a defendant, have charges dismissed. In the Georgia election interference prosecution against former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants, a recent argument gets points for creativity, at least (and, perhaps, at most).

It came in a motion from Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who pushed the “fake elector” scheme to create false Electoral College slates in seven states that Trump lost in 2020. He’s set for trial next month alongside MAGA lawyer Sidney Powell.

In a motion to quash, Chesebro essentially argued that the Republican electors in Georgia weren’t fake — or weren’t electors, or something — so, the argument goes, he can’t be charged with conspiring to commit false statements and writings.

According to the indictment, one of his charges stems from a document containing the false statement that its signatories, “being the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Georgia, do hereby certify the following.”

That sure sounds like a false statement if those people aren’t the duly elected and qualified electors from the state.

But Chesebro contends in his motion that it wasn’t a false statement because the Georgia Republicans were “qualified and elected by the Republican Party.” He added that the slate of electors “was not certified or ascertained, but nor did it purport to be.”

Again, it’s a creative argument, one that still leaves unclear how the defense gets around the scheme being straight-up fraudulent. Republicans didn’t get those electors because Trump didn’t win Georgia. Joe Biden did.

At any rate, we shouldn’t expect Chesebro’s charges to get tossed out on that adventurous basis. But with that trial looming in October, we should find out from Judge Scott McAfee what he thinks about the argument sooner rather than later.