Prosecutors have agreed to the cooperation of three attorneys who were indicted alongside Donald Trump in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the racketeering case.
As per a plea agreement with Georgia prosecutors, pro-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who bolstered former President Donald J. Trump's unfounded allegations of election fraud as a member of a legal "elite strike force team," entered into a guilty plea on Tuesday.
Ms. Ellis consented to a five-year probationary term, restitution of $5,000, and community service of one hundred hours. She has already issued a letter of contrition to the citizens of Georgia and has consented to full cooperation with prosecutors throughout the course of the case.
Both Kenneth Chesebro, a mastermind behind the plan to utilize fraudulent Trump voters in Georgia and other crucial states, and Sidney Powell, a vocal attorney for Mr. Trump who disseminated absurd conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the election, reached plea agreements with prosecutors last week.
Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who, along with Ms. Powell, was implicated in a violation of voting apparatus and data at the elections office of a rural Georgia county, entered a guilty plea late last month.
In contrast to the other culpable defendants, Ms. Ellis requested permission from the court to enter a statement. She wept as she rose from the defense table and stated, "Being a Christian attorney, I place great emphasis on my professional obligations."
She said Mr. Trump's 2020 loss should have been challenged in a “just and legal way.” But she said she relied on information from other lawyers, including those “with many more years of experience than I,” and failed to exercise her “due diligence” in verifying their assertions.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges,” Ellis told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. This experience makes me regretful. Your honor, I am sorry to the people of Georgia for my shortcomings, which the Colorado bar censured me for.
Ms. Ellis stated in a sworn affidavit in Colorado, her home state, in March that she had willfully distorted the facts in many public allegations that widespread vote fraud had caused Mr. Trump's defeat. In exchange for public condemnation and disciplinary action from Colorado state bar regulators, Ms. Ellis made such confessions.
“We do plan to file a new complaint in Colorado based on the guilty plea, so the bar can assess the matter in light of her criminal conduct,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the nonpartisan 65 Project legal monitoring organization.
On her Christian radio show last month, she called Mr. Trump “a friend” and said, “I have great love and respect for him personally.” On the show, she stated she could not back him politically again because he had a “malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”