Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis’ law license suspended after guilty plea in Georgia election interference case
(CNN) — Jenna Ellis, who assisted Donald Trump after the 2020 election then pleaded guilty last year in the Georgia election subversion case, has had her law license suspended in Colorado.
The suspension begins July 2, according to a signed order from a state judge in Colorado. Ellis has been an attorney licensed to practice law in Colorado for more than a decade, according to court records.
Ellis will be unable to practice law for three years in the state. Other states that may recognize her law license are likely to refuse to allow her to practice law as well.
This latest action adds to the fallout for others who assisted Trump, such as Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who are also losing their abilities to practice law. The Colorado attorney discipline authorities approved the suspension because of Ellis’ admissions in the Georgia case, where others such as Eastman, Giuliani and Trump himself are still fighting the charges.
Ellis pleaded guilty last year to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and will cooperate with Fulton County prosecutors. She was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution.
She delivered a tearful statement to the judge while pleading guilty, disavowing her participation in Trump’s unprecedented attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
“If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this experience with deep remorse,” Ellis said.
Prior to her guilty plea in Georgia, the same attorney discipline judge that suspended her in Colorado signed off on publicly censuring Ellis for 10 misrepresentations she made following the 2020 election, such as in media appearances where she insisted Trump won “in a landslide.”
Last week, Ellis wrote to the Colorado Supreme Court disciplinary authorities, in a fulsome mea culpa for her role in spreading Trump’s election lies, according to documents made public related to her attorney discipline proceedings.
This letter from Ellis goes even further than the apology she gave in court in Georgia when she pleaded guilty, which focused more on her own remorse and did not describe as thoroughly how she believed Trump’s lies penetrated his campaign and the country after the 2020 election.
“I want to tell the truth. In doing so I wish to express my deep remorse and to acknowledge the harm my misconduct caused,” Ellis wrote.
In the two-page letter, Ellis said she initially believed election challenges from Trump’s team were being made “in good faith” but was overzealous and took her colleagues’ lies at face value, fueling the public’s belief in false claims about the election.
“Had I known what I know now, I would not have been involved,” she wrote.
Ellis also said she hoped her public repudiation of Trump’s post-2020 election position will encourage others still denying the election results to change their opinions.
“I will gratefully accept a 3-year suspension in my practice of law as consequence for my actions … I will hopefully encourage others who may still believe that the election was ‘stolen’ to consider changing their position. Everything that has come out since has not proven that claim,” Ellis wrote.
Ellis was also charged in Arizona last month for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, along with a number of fake electors and several other individuals connected to Trump’s campaign. She is scheduled to appear in court next month.
The-CNN-Wire
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