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As part of a plea deal former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, in a tearful statement she read to a Georgia court, admitted her guilt on Tuesday for her part in Donald Trump‘s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Early in her tenure as a Trump campaign lawyer, Ellis’ carefully-crafted brand included the claim she was a “constitutional law attorney.” One month after the 2020 election that Trump lost, The New York Times asked: “How Is Trump’s Lawyer Jenna Ellis ‘Elite Strike Force’ Material?”
“She bills herself as a ‘constitutional law attorney.’ Her experience doesn’t align with the sort of lawyer she plays on TV,” the paper of record charged.
Ellis’ brand also includes strong Christian nationalism.
After leaving the Trump campaign, Ellis became an attorney for the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a far-right Christian nationalist.
Last year The New York Times included Ellis in a feature titled, “The Far-Right Christian Quest for Power.”
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“At the Patriots Arise event,” The Times reported, “Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Mr. Mastriano and the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, told the audience that ‘what it really means to truly be America first, what it truly means to pursue happiness, what it truly means to be a Christian nation are all actually the same thing.’”
The Times has also noted that early in her career, Ellis worked as an attorney for James Dobson, the evangelical anti-LGBTQ activist who founded the Family Research Council. FRC now appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
Ellis is now associated with another group that also appears on the SPLC’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups: the American Family Association, where she hosts American Family Radio’s “Jenna Ellis in the Morning.”
“Jenna Ellis in the Morning aims to provide valuable commentary on the issues of our day and to do so from both a biblical and constitutional perspective,” her bio at AFR reads. “She is the chairwoman of the Election Integrity Alliance, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, and an allied attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom also appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
She still calls herself a “constitutional law attorney.”
“As a constitutional law attorney,” her bio at the Salem Podcast Network begins, “former senior legal advisor and personal counsel to President Donald J. Trump, Jenna Ellis believes in the rule of law and the importance of integrity in our elections. In each episode of the Jenna Ellis Show, she will tackle the critical cultural and legal issues our country faces.”
Ellis’ bio at X, formerly Twitter, simply reads: “A servant of Jesus Christ.”
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Pinned atop that page is Ellis’ plea for financial support in the Georgia case, which she just pleaded guilty to on Tuesday.
“Over $200,000 raised for my defense fund!” her post dated September 14 reads. “Thank you to everyone who is helping me fight a weaponized government and the criminalization of the practice of law.”
But less than six weeks later, on Tuesday morning before a judge in a Fulton County, Georgia courtroom, Jenna Ellis didn’t mention a “weaponized government” or the “criminalization of the practice of law.” Instead, she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of “aiding and abetting false statements and writings.”
District Attorney Fani Willis charged Ellis with – and she admitted guilt to – having “intentionally aided and abetted” Rudy Giuliani “in knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully making” false statements to the Georgia Senate. Those false statements involve clams of massive fraud.
The charge centers on the transmission of false information to Georgia legisaltors on Dec. 3, 2020. https://t.co/4Oa6qAv00Q pic.twitter.com/ew6XZEn0lp
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 24, 2023
On Tuesday, Ellis claimed her actions were done out of ignorance of facts and trusting attorneys who had more experience that she had.
“As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously,” Ellis told the judge. “And I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings.”
“In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, I believed that challenging the results on behalf of President Trump should be pursued in a just and legal way. I endeavored to represent my client to the best of my ability. I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience than I, to provide me with true and reliable information, especially since my role involved speaking to the media and to legislators in various states,” she said.
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“What I did not do but should have done, Your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other layers alleged to be true, were in fact true. In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges to the election in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence. I believe in and I value election integrity. 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. For those failures of mine, Your Honor, I have taken responsibility already before the Colorado bar who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”
Watch below or at this link.
Jenna Ellis: “I failed to do my due diligence. I believe in and I value election integrity. 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.” pic.twitter.com/6Zf0SZ5X22
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) October 24, 2023
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