Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis joins Mastriano’s campaign team

Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano announced on Monday that Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who challenged the 2020 elections results for former President Trump, would join his campaign as a senior legal adviser. 

“Jenna Ellis was the first to endorse us and was a champion for our campaign during the Primary Election,” Mastriano, a former state senator who who won the GOP primary just weeks ago, said in a statement. 

“The talent, experience, and legal expertise Jenna brings will be an important factor in helping us defeat Josh Shapiro and the extreme Democrat agenda in November,” he added.

Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is the Democratic nominee for governor.

In Monday’s announcement, Ellis also called the race “the most important in the country,” adding that “Mastriano will reinstate personal and economic freedom in Pennsylvania, and he’ll restore integrity to our elections.”

Ellis is among Trump’s former attorneys who were subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, after she publicly promoted assertions that the 2020 election was stolen.

She reportedly “prepared and circulated two memos purporting to analyze the constitutional authority for the Vice President to reject or delay counting electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors,” the committee said when they issued her subpoena. 

Ellis was also part of an “elite strike force team” created by Trump’s campaign in November 2020 in an effort to combat Biden’s victory.

Well after the election, Ellis declared in July 2021 that she was leaving the Republican Party, alleging that it was not conservative enough.

“I am changing my voter registration, and I am no longer a Republican until the party decides that it wants to be conservative again. Even if I stand alone for the truth, I will stand for the truth,” Ellis said at the time.

Now, Ellis will work with Mastriano’s team as he seeks to fill outgoing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) open seat. 

Last month, Mastriano received an endorsement from Trump ahead of the state’s primary election.

“There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity than State Senator Doug Mastriano,” Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC.

Mastriano later said in a statement that he was “honored” to received the former president’s endorsement.