Yet Another Trump Election Lawyer Has Taken a Plea Deal
Jenna Ellis, a member of Donald Trump‘s team of lawyers who helped challenge the results of the 2020 election, has taken a plea deal in Georgia.
Ellis on Tuesday pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings in connection with the scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s win. She was sentenced to five years probation and community service, and has agreed to testify truthfully against other defendants in the case.
In a tearful statement to the court Ellis stated that she had “failed to do [her] due diligence.”
“I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience than I to provide me with true and reliable information,” she said. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”
Ellis was charged alongside Trump and 17 others in August with having participated in a sprawling racketeering scheme to subvert Georgia’s 2020 election results. Ellis was indicted on two counts: having violated Georgia’s RICO act, and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. The second charge related directly to her alleged participation in the fake electors scheme, a ploy by Trump’s allies to replace electoral college votes for President Biden with an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors.
Ellis is the fourth of Trump’s co-defendants to plead guilty, joining bail bondsman Scott Hall, coup plotter Ken Chesebro, and Trump election lawyer Sidney Powell. Rolling Stone reported last week that Powell’s plea last week surprised the former president, in particular, as he and his team believed “she really believed what she was pushing” about the election being rigged, according to a lawyer close to Trump.
Trump tried to claim over the weekend that Powell was never his attorney.