Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, has struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors, becoming the fourth co-defendant in the sprawling conspiracy case to flip on the former president.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump,” Ellis said as she tearfully read a statement to the court on Tuesday morning.
It was a dramatic about-turn for the 38-year-old lawyer who had long been a prominent public supporter of the former president, often appearing on conservative media to defend him. Following the 2020 presidential election, she appeared several times alongside Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and repeated the then-president’s unfounded claims that the election had been stolen.
The plea also delivers yet another legal blow to Trump as he runs again for the White House. Trump is charged in four separate criminal cases, and is facing several civil cases as well. But his legal problems have done little to dent his appeal with the Republican grassroots, and he remains the undisputed favourite to clinch the party’s nomination for 2024.
Ellis was facing two charges relating to meddling in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. She was charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants in August in a sweeping 98-page indictment that relied heavily on the state’s racketeering laws.
She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge on Tuesday morning in Atlanta, in a deal that would require to her to testify against the former president in future court proceedings.
Ellis is the fourth co-defendant to strike a plea deal with prosecutors in Georgia. Last week, two other former Trump lawyers, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, accepted plea deals rather than stand trial in the sweeping conspiracy case. Another co-defendant, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, also pleaded guilty in the case last month.
Trump did not immediately comment on Ellis’s plea deal on Tuesday. He was in court in New York on Tuesday morning in a separate civil lawsuit brought by the state’s attorney-general, Letitia James, accusing him of fraud in connection with his business empire.
Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor, said Ellis’s plea was “significant” as it could prevent Trump from claiming he was merely relying on legal advice when trying to challenge Georgia’s election process.
“If she says this was a house of cards . . . that would be very valuable to prosecutors,” McQuade said, adding that if Ellis admits that she was acting unlawfully, “it is very difficult for Donald Trump to say that he was acting in good faith”.
The plea deals by Ellis and her three co-defendants in the Georgia case also make it likely that they will co-operate with federal prosecutors in the parallel criminal election interference case brought against Trump by Jack Smith, McQuade said.