Jenna Ellis Is the Third—Third!—Trump Lawyer to Plead Guilty in Georgia Election Case

As a general rule of thumb, it’s not considered a positive development if your attorney pleads guilty in a case you both are charged in. Even less positive? If three of them do so.

Unfortunately for one Donald J. Trump, that’s exactly what’s happened over the course of the last week, with lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis all admitting to their roles in the plot to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. On Tuesday, in Fulton County, Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. Through tears, she told the court: “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.” She also seemed to throw Rudy Giuliani under the bus, saying she’d relied on information from other attorneys, including some “with many more years of experience than I.” (As The Washington Post notes, “Ellis traveled the country with Giuliani after the 2020 election, speaking to legislators in hopes of getting states to overturn their results”; she also “participated in other meetings and phone calls with Giuliani and key state figures, as well as the infamous Nov. 19, 2020, news conference with Giuliani and Powell.”)

In exchange for her plea, Ellis was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to perform community service and pay $5,000 in restitution. She was also required to write an apology letter to the people of Georgia. Most crucially, she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against her codefendants—a list that includes Trump—should they go to trial.

Ellis’s guilty plea comes days after Powell and Chesebro admitted to committing misdemeanors and a felony, respectively, while trying to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. (If you’ve buried late 2020/early 2021 deep inside the recesses of your mind, Powell is the one who made bonkers election-fraud claims and attended a wild Oval Office meeting with Trump, during which the topic of invoking martial law reportedly came up; Chesebro was one of the architects of the fake-elector plot in Georgia.) In addition, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty late last month.

Over the weekend, Trump claimed Powell was never actually his attorney (despite having announced her as his attorney to millions of people). He does not appear to have commented on the Ellis news, but when he does, perhaps he’ll similarly claim to have never worked with her.