This time it’s Jenna Ellis, who had been complaining last spring that Trump wasn’t helping pay for her legal bills. This is the New York Times on the plea (no paywall):
Ms. Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the Georgia case, which charged Mr. Trump and 18 others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor.
Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.
Interesting bit:
Ms. Ellis, unlike the other defendants who have pleaded guilty, asked the court to let her give a statement. She cried as she rose from the defense table and said, “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously.”
She said that after Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, she believed that challenging the election results on his behalf should have been pursued in a “just and legal way.” But she said that she had relied on information provided by other lawyers, including some “with many more years of experience than I,” and failed to do her “due diligence” in checking the veracity of their claims.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges,” Ms. Ellis told Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse. For those failures of mine, your honor, I’ve taken responsibility already before the Colorado bar, who censured me, and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.”
However,
In March, Ms. Ellis admitted in a sworn statement in Colorado, her home state, that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several public claims that widespread voting fraud had occurred and had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat. Those admissions were part of an agreement Ms. Ellis made to accept public censure and settle disciplinary measures brought against her by state bar officials in Colorado.
Though she is still able to practice law in Colorado, the group that brought the original complaint against her, leading to the censure, said on Tuesday that new action would be coming.
“We do plan to file a new complaint in Colorado based on the guilty plea, so that the bar can assess the matter in light of her criminal conduct,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group.
So she’s not quite getting her stories straight.
In other news that is a surprise to me, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) won the nomination for speaker today. Emmer is one of the small minority of candidates who voted to certify the 2020 election, which probably means the Freedom Caucus crew won’t vote for him. Emmer got 117 votes in the Republican caucus. Coming in second with 95 votes was Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who did not vote to certify the 2020 election. Then the House Republicans had an internal roll call to see if Emmer could get to 217. But he fell more than 20 votes short. It’s not clear to me what’s going to happen next.
Michael Cohen testified today in Trump’s New York civil fraud trial. Trump was in the courtroom, I believe. I’m sure there will be more commentary on this soon.
Update: Trump is trying desperately to get the J6 charges dismissed.
Former president Donald Trump launched a multipronged legal attack late Monday on his federal prosecution for allegedly subverting the results of the 2020 election, saying his actions were protected by the First Amendment as political speech and arguing that he cannot be tried in criminal court for attempting to block Joe Biden’s victory, because he was already impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.
I’m not sure the fake electors scheme, among other things, qualifies as “political speech.” And I’ve heard all over the place that an impeachment trial in the Senate can’t count as “double jeopardy” because it is outside the judicial system, and a conviction would not have resulted in any sort of criminal or civil charges, just removal from office. What this tells me is that Trump’s lawyers just file whatever he tells them to file and do their best to make it look less ridiculous than it is.
Another flip? Mark Meadows has been granted immunity by Jack Smith’s team, I believe in the J6 case.
Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump’s prolific rhetoric regarding the election.
According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being “dishonest” with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.
Update: Meadows is throwing cold water on this story, which was reported by ABC News. See Emptywheel for details.
Emmer Dropped Out. So what if the House Dems recruited Liz Cheney and got some Republican to nominate her? She’d need, what, five or six Republican votes? At least she’d not work with Trump and would bring aid to Israel and Ukraine to a vote.
Yeah, it seems like Ellis said stuff in March, in front of the Colorado disciplinary board, more to keep her license than to sincerely admit guilt. It's not entirely clear, but it's almost as if she recanted this "confession" shortly thereafter – hence her Mugshot Barbie face, which she used to fundraise. Glad that the 65 Project is going for some additional action on this.
It will be interesting if the Democrats come to the rescue of Tom Emmer, and if he does become Speaker, will he survive. At least Emmer isn't an election denier. IMO he's probably the current best hope for a functioning House of Representatives.
Some comments from the WaPo:
So maybe it's time for Jenna to take down the post on her personal LinkedIn account that says… "Thanks so much to everyone who has reached out with support for this ridiculous indictment attempting to criminalize the practice of law." ….. includes a link to her official defense fund.
Tuesday Lunch Special
Fried Calamari with a side of Chesebro, Jenna jam on Trump toast
and a choice of just desserts.
She cried as she rose from the defense table and said, “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously.”
Where was her Christian spirit when she stood shoulder to shoulder with Rudy Giuliani accusing Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss of passing around a thumb drive like it was a vial of cocaine. You don't even have to be a code talker to understand the implications of what Rudy was implying. That black people by their nature are criminal and prone to drug use. It was a blatantly racist attack on two innocent women, and yet for all her Christian values Jenna Ellis couldn't manage to find monent of introspection of her Christain values. Too little to late.
Rudy and others didn't lead her astray. The corruption in her own heart got her where she is today. She got off easy.
I chuckled at the opening "I'm a christian" gambit …
Here's a subtle distinction, one known only to those who have traveled the same path. People like Ellis have a great love for Jesus, so much so they wear it on their sleeves. I'm certain that everything she did for Trump was really, in her mind, for Jesus.
At the same time, they're unconscious of all the ways they offend Jesus. All the stupid and obvious things, like money, power, even cruelty and punishing others. Like babies, they cannot see that what they're doing is wrong.
Gradually, life may open their eyes to their shortcomings as "a Christian". I hope that's what's ahead for Ellis.
The short expression for this^ is two words: spiritual immaturity.
As an atheist I regard her responsibilities as a lawyer just as seriously as she does.
Another "speaker" candidate implodes! I keep seeing my Kevin on the tee-vee yapping about the 208 democrats that sunk his speakership. Do you think any of the potted plants that call themselves "congressional correspondents" would ask: so you wanted the democrats to help save your speakership? Did you ask them for help? Would you accept help now? Those fucking idiot "reporters" run around all fucking day long and keep asking the same tired questions that only get predictable "talking point" responses? Ask those assholes if they need help from the democrats?
With Mark Meadows singing, it should be pretty damn easy to play "Name That Goon!"
Every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings…And every time I turn on my computer another Trump defendant flips on Trump.
It's time for Nancy to say "Miss me yet?"
The only redemption for the republican party is to publicly beg Liz Cheney to be speaker. Other than that, they go the way of the wigs.
It makes sense so they break their cardinal rule: If it makes sense, we cannot do it that way. Redemption is not easy. This would just be step #1.
I woke up from a dream that I won't recount – it's boring and ridiculous. But it took me some time to sort out how much of the dream was true – it involved a real person – and the vast majority of the events in the dream that weren't. This isn't common for me – I do dream but I seldom wake up convinced the events were anything other than fantasy.
My non-professional opinion is that there are "gates" in the mind regarding objective factual reality – the kind of events we'd all perceive in our waking hours. Occasionally, a dream sneaks past the gate into the recollections of reality and tries to mingle there. (Again, this is subjective. If anyone knows of any professional studies that describe this, I'd be curious.) But there's a point.
I think some people haven't got a working "gate" in their waking hours. It's not just that they are open to cognitive bias, the tendency to believe what tickles our pre-judged values. These folks are absolutely conned into accepting as biblical truth things that are not so. It's not limited to Republicans, though the habit is rampant among conservatives. I know true progressives who have no "gate" regarding Kennedy and the outrageous positions he's taken.
This is why the legal forum is taking center stage. There are rules of evidence, fact, and credibility that have evolved and are almost universally applied by judges. And where judges fail individually, there's an appeals court above. Trump isn't just at a disadvantage in court – he's screwed there. The fluff and wild claims have zero weight in court when contradicted by evidence and testimony.
The question is what percentage of voters are under the spell of unreality. The GA trials will be televised – which pumps unfiltered facts into the brains of those who see. And some filters, like Fox – are designed to muddle perception. The reports of reporters who were in the courtroom are sometimes objective, but frequently not. And I watch reporters who I do agree with who I know are NOT being objective.