Jenna Ellis, a lawyer and prominent conservative media figure, has reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Ellis, the fourth defendant in the case to enter into a plea deal, was a vocal part of Mr Trump’s re-election campaign in the last presidential cycle and was charged alongside the Republican former president and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law.
Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
She had been facing charges of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act and soliciting the violation of oath by a public officer.
The guilty plea from Ellis comes just days after two other defendants, fellow lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, entered guilty pleas.
That means three high-profile people responsible for pushing baseless legal challenges to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory have agreed to accept responsibility for their roles rather than take their chances before a jury.
Ellis, 38, said in a tearful statement that she relied on lawyers with much more experience than her and failed to verify that the things they told her were true.
Prosecutors recommend five years of probation for Ellis along with 5,000 dollars in restitution, 100 hours of community service, writing an apology letter to the people of Georgia and testifying truthfully in trials related to this case.
The early pleas and the favourable punishment – probation rather than jail – could foreshadow similar outcomes for additional defendants who may see an admission of guilt and co-operation as their best hope for leniency.
Even so, their value as witnesses against Mr Trump is unclear given that their direct participation in unfounded schemes will no doubt expose them to attacks on their credibility and bruising cross-examinations should they testify.
The indictment in the sweeping case details a number of accusations against Ellis, including that she helped author plans on how to disrupt and delay congressional certification of the 2020 election’s results on January 6 2021, the day a mob of Trump supporters eventually overran the US Capitol.
Ellis is also accused of urging state legislators to unlawfully appoint a set of presidential electors loyal to Mr Trump at a hearing in Pennsylvania, and she later appeared with some of those politicians and Mr Trump at a meeting on the topic at the White House.
The indictment further says she similarly pushed state politicians to back false, pro-Trump electors in Georgia as well as Arizona and Michigan.
Before her plea, Ellis was defiant, posting in August on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter: “The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalising the practice of law. I am resolved to trust the Lord.”
But she has been more critical of Mr Trump since then, saying on conservative radio in September that she would not vote for him again, citing his “malignant, narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong”.
Along with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Ellis was a leading voice in the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, appearing frequently on television and conservative media to tell lies about widespread fraud that did not occur and spread misinformation and conspiracy theories.
She was censured in Colorado in March after admitting she made repeated false statements about the 2020 election.
That punishment was due in part to an appearance on Newsmax on November 20 2020, during which she said: “With all those states (Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia) combined we know that the election was stolen from president Trump, and we can prove that.”
