UPDATE: 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark explains the next steps in Jenna Ellis’ new life as a convicted felon:
Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel will review whether Ellis’ criminal act “eflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness.” Ellis previously admitted to that body that she lied about election rigging and wasn’t disbarred for it.
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) October 24, 2023
But she hadn’t been convicted of a felony, either. That ought to factor.
Is it too late for Ellis to change her name to Sallie Goodman?
—–
This morning came the news Coloradans following the criminal trial in Georgia of ex-President Donald Trump and his “elite strike force” of co-conspirators in the plot to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election have been waiting for: Jenna Ellis, the Colorado Christian University Centennial Institute Fellow and fired traffic court attorney left clinging to her law license after being censured by Colorado attorney regulators, today pled guilty to a felony charge in a deal with prosecutors. As the Washington Post reports:
Ellis, who had been facing two charges including violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering act, pleaded guilty in court Tuesday morning to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. The deal allows her to avoid jail time in exchange for providing evidence that could implicate other defendants and agreeing to testify in any future trials. Ellis worked closely with personal Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, another defendant in the case who faces 13 charges.
The plea marks the first time a senior Trump aide has been held criminally accountable for and has admitted to making false statements that the 2020 presidential election was tainted by widespread fraud. In a hearing Tuesday morning, Ellis tearfully admitted that she was wrong and misled and that she no longer believes those false claims.
Jenna Ellis’ rapid rise to infamy as one of Trump’s “elite strike force” lawyers whose failed and increasingly desperate strategies for overturning the 2020 election led directly to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th earned a reputation for her flippant disregard for accountability as investigations into the coup plot zeroed in on Ellis as a major co-conspirator. During the January 6th select committee investigation of the plot to overturn the 2020 elections, Jenna Ellis responded to her subpoena with unconcealed juvenile contempt:
After Ellis was censured by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel last spring for multiple false statements about the 2020 elections made “with at least a reckless state of mind,” Ellis might have been expected to slow her vitriolic roll online, where her turn against Donald Trump–which we now know had more to do with lack of support from Trump than an authentic change of heart–had continued to earn Ellis media attention parenthetical to the scandal over the 2020 elections.
With today’s felony guilty plea, we’re pretty sure that phase of Jenna Ellis’ life is over. The thin pretenses holding together Ellis’ reputation after the censure agreement have been pretty much obliterated by this felony conviction. Ellis’ plea deal, like that of fellow coup attorney Sidney Powell, rests on the assumption that Ellis will now testify without reservation against the remaining co-conspirators. That’s very bad news for the two lawyers directly up the food chain: Rudy Giuliani and former University of Colorado conservative scholar John Eastman.
And it’s no less bad for the apex predator in the 2020 coup plot, around whom the walls are rapidly closing in.
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Crocodile tears in the courtroom, punctuated by virtue-signaling about how she's a Christian.
Less sympathetic, I cannot be.
Funny how the "power of prayer" failed yet again. Tots and pears to the soon-to-be-convicted felon.
And the "I didn't knowingly lie, I just shouldn't have trusted other, more experienced lawyers" defense makes me want to vomit. When she was making representations to the court, in pleadings, and in person, she had to exercise professional diligence. She cannot simply repeat what her client is telling her if she has reason to know that it is not the truth. This is very basic stuff, and she knows it. She is splitting hairs and it is unbecoming of her (and my) profession.
Surely she knows that (her) ignorance is no excuse before the law.
How does the process of disbarring Ellis work from here and how can I help?
she's required to self-report to the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which will investigate. Proceedings are largely confidential.
Ms. Ellis apparently agreed to a deal that involved "five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses."
I'm hoping the "community service" will include an insistence that she read her apology letter on any mass media program paying her to perform during the period of her probation.
Yup. I like that last part. Should be routine in such cases.
Spot on, JiD. It's her kind that makes the word lawyer leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths.