ATLANTA (CN) — Jenna Ellis, who served as an attorney for the Trump campaign, became the fourth defendant to accept a plea deal on Tuesday in the Georgia election interference case against the former president and several of his allies.
Appearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee alongside her attorneys, Franklin and Laura Hogue, Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Ellis must complete five years probation and 100 hours of community service, as well as pay $5,000 in restitution to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office within 30 days. She also agreed to testify truthfully against other defendants, provide documents and other evidence, refrain from posting about the case on social media and write an apology letter to Georgia voters.
The deal allows Ellis to avoid jail time. She faced a possible maximum sentence of five years under the indictment brought in August. According to her new charging document, Ellis “knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully” made false statements about election fraud in Georgia.
"I failed to do my due diligence," Ellis told the judge tearfully. "I believe in and 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."
Ellis' testimony could be useful for prosecutors in their cases against defendants Rudy Giuliani and Ray Smith. Ellis helped them in a meeting before members of the Georgia Senate to push claims of election fraud after the 2020 vote.
The plea agreement cites numerous false statements Ellis, Giuliani and Smith made during the Dec. 3, 2020, legislative hearing in Atlanta, including that at least 96,000 fraudulent absentee ballots were cast in the election; that 2,506 felons voted; that 66,248 underage voters cast ballots; and that 10,315 dead people voted.
Giuliani, one of Trump's former personal attorneys, faces 13 charges, largely for falsely claiming he had proof of election workers pulling out "suitcases" of ballots. During the Georgia Senate meeting, he presented supposed surveillance footage of ballots being tabulated at Atlanta's State Farm Arena. An investigation by Georgia election officials found that the footage showed regular ballot containers used in Fulton County.
According to August's indictment, Ellis worked closely with Giuliani and contacted state officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan to further spread his false election fraud claims and request that they unlawfully appoint presidential electors in favor of Trump.
Atlanta-based lawyer Smith, who faces 12 charges, is said to have sent letters to state officials raising concerns of voter fraud. He filed one of the Trump campaign's election challenges in state court. At least 63 lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting and the vote-certification process were filed by the Trump campaign in multiple states, nearly all of which have been dismissed or dropped due to lack of evidence.
During Tuesday's hearing, Ellis told Judge McAfee that she tried to represent her client, President Trump, and his challenge of the election results in a "just and legal" way.
"I relied on lawyers with many more years' 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," Ellis said.
"What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true, were in fact true," she continued.
Ellis is the fourth defendant in the case to enter a plea agreement, bringing the total number of defendants down from 19 to 15, including Trump.
Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall — who was present at the Coffee County elections office in rural Georgia on January 2021 and helped in the arrangement of Atlanta tech company SullivanStrickler, accessing voting equipment and copying confidential data — was the first to plead guilty, on Sept. 29.
His agreement to provide truthful testimony in exchange for five misdemeanor counts was followed by Texas attorney Sidney Powell, who paid the employees of the tech company, accepting a plea deal last week.
Powell was supposed to stand trial with Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro in the upcoming weeks, after the judge granted their requests for speedy trials and severed their trial from the other defendants. But a last-minute plea from Chesebro, just hours after jury selection began on Friday, scuttled that trial.
It remains unclear when the trial for the remaining defendants will begin. Discovery from the Fulton County District Attorney's office was due earlier this month and counsel for the defendants have until Dec. 4 to submit their evidence.
The indictment charges that the defendants "refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.”
Trump is charged with racketeering and a dozen other felonies, including solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and false statements and writings.
The Georgia indictment is the former president's fourth since March, when he became the first former or sitting U.S. president to face criminal charges.
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