Jenna Ellis pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case

Jenna Ellis reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in the Georgia 2020 election interference case Tuesday, becoming the third former Trump campaign attorney to do so.

Ellis, who once described herself as part of an “elite strike force team” of attorneys pursuing unfounded claims of election fraud, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” a tearful Ellis told the judge.

Like the others who took plea deals, Ellis agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants, including Trump.

She was sentenced to five years of probation, 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution and write a letter of apology to Georgia citizens.

“How do you plead to aiding and abetting false statements and writings,” Fulton County prosecutor Daysha Young asked.

“Guilty,” Ellis responded.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) charged Ellis, the former president and 17 others in August in a sprawling racketeering indictment that accused all of them of entering an unlawful conspiracy to keep Trump in power following the 2020 election.

Since the indictment, four of the 19 co-defendants have taken plea deals with prosecutors. Scott Hall, a former bail bondsman, was the first to do so last month.

In recent days, three Trump attorneys have now followed suit and agreed to testify against the former president. Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro took plea deals late last week, and Ellis joined them Tuesday.

Legal experts suggest their agreements to testify could raise the other defendants’ legal jeopardy or also induce them to take a deal.

Beyond the racketeering charge, Ellis also faced a count of soliciting a public officer to violate their oath in connection with her attendance at a Dec. 3, 2020, Georgia Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

She will avoid those charges by instead pleading to aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

The hearing was one of a series of state legislative committee meetings in which Trump’s allies attempted to convince lawmakers of their baseless claims of mass electoral fraud. 

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Georgia-based attorney Ray Smith are both charged with a count of making false statements and writings in connection with the Dec. 3 hearing. 

“The false statements were made with reckless disregard of the truth and with conspicuous purpose to avoid learning the truth,” Young said at Ellis’s plea hearing Tuesday. 

“The defendant attended and abetted Giuliani [and] Smith in making these false statements by assisting with the execution of the December 3, 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee meeting,” Young continued.

Charging documents also noted Ellis’s various communications and meetings with lawmakers in other key swing states.

The indictment further referenced Ellis’s participation at a Nov. 19, 2020, press conference alongside Giuliani and Powell to outline their post-election strategy. 

Ellis described the group as an “elite strike force team” to reporters that day, and Giuliani had introduced the group as the Trump campaign’s lead attorneys. After Powell took her plea deal last week, however, Trump claimed she was never his attorney.

A trial date has not yet been set in Georgia for Trump and the 14 other co-defendants who have pleaded not guilty. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has portrayed the prosecution as a political witch hunt.

Updated at 10:18 a.m.