The Colorado lawyer who helped lead Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election admitted she made false claims about the “stolen election.”
Jenna Ellis, who was Trump’s senior legal adviser during the time in question, has now been publicly censured for misconduct by officials from her state’s bar after admitting under oath that she violated multiple professional rules when she misrepresented facts about the 2020 election.
A watchdog found at least 10 examples of misrepresentation, including claims made on various TV appearances. In an interview on Sean Spicer’s show on Newsmax, for example, Ellis referred to contested election results in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
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“With all those states… combined we know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove that,” she said.
In another instance on Fox News, Ellis brazenly claimed that over 500,000 votes in Arizona were cast illegally.
In an agreement with legal authorities, Ellis reportedly accepted that she had “through her conduct, undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public.”
Ellis reportedly agreed she had a “selfish motive” in making the misrepresentations and that she engaged in a pattern of misconduct, but a judge decided against disbarring her because she had no prior wrongdoings in the state.
While the censure suggests Ellis knowingly made false claims about the election, the embattled lawyer took to Twitter to release a rambling statement that said this is “FALSE,” and that she’d “NEVER lie” intentionally.
“The politically-motivated Left failed miserably in their attempt to destroy me,” Ellis said. “They’re now trying to falsely discredit me by saying I admitted I lied.”
Influential right-wing columnist Ann Coulter mocked Ellis in a tweet of her own, saying: “Do the Trump die-hards ENJOY being lied to?”
Ellis isn’t the first Trump lawyer to face consequences from a state’s bar association for amplifying the former president’s lies about his 2020 defeat. She now joins Rudy Giuliani, who had his law licenses in New York and Washington, D.C., suspended, and conspiracist Sidney Powell, who faced a disciplinary case from the Texas Bar Association that was later thrown out.
The fallout over Ellis’ false claims may not be over just yet. She, like other lawyers on the “strike force” that marched around the country to parrot Trump’s lies, is also embroiled in a separate DOJ investigation being probed by a special counsel. Dozens of grand jury subpoenas have been issued, many of which have requested information about Ellis, The New York Times reports.
The States United Democracy Center, one of two non-profits to file a complaint against Ellis in Colorado, praised the decision to censure her in a statement on Thursday.
“Her lies did lasting damage, and her name will forever be linked to this assault on our democracy,” said Aaron Scherzer, the organization’s senior counsel.
Read it at Colorado Newsline
