Former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty Tuesday in the Georgia election subversion case and will cooperate with Fulton County prosecutors – the third guilty plea in the past week.

At an unscheduled hearing in Atlanta, Ellis pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements, a felony stemming from the election lies that Ellis and other Donald Trump lawyers peddled to Georgia lawmakers in December 2020.

She was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution.

Ellis delivered a tearful statement to the judge Tuesday while pleading guilty, disavowing her participation in Trump’s unprecedented attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

  • There are some guilty pleas that won’t result in your law license being taken away. Even some felony charges don’t necessarily mean you get disbarred. But a felony charge for submitting a false instrument, is not one of them. That is a crime of moral turpitude, and I’m 95% certain she will now be disbarred.

      • @Zron@lemmy.world
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        71 year ago

        Imagine listening to that man speak for 30 seconds and not writing him off as an idiot.

        Blows my mind, man.

      • Yes every lawyer is required to self report any conviction to the bar immediately. Delay or failure to report is basically an immediate, long term suspension, six months, one years, if not disbarment, and that’s just on the lack of candor/failure to report, there will still be a hearing on the underlying criminal conviction.

      • Possibly. I think the last two pleas were only to misdemeanors. Not that the distinction is a defining factor, but it makes a difference but bars are more tolerant of lesser offenses, it’s really about the nature of the crime; two or three DUIs, no problem, embezzlement or forgery however is serious problem. The bar cannot abide lawyers with convictions for crimes of dishonesty, most especially crimes involving entrusted money or property, or as it were, crimes that involve submitting falsified documents to the state.

        Government needs to be able to trust people. If lawyers are let to make a mockery of that trust, the social compact falls apart. You’d have to have an administrative trial everytime you need to renew your license or vote. It would be Kafkaesque.

        These are serious offenses, seriously antisocial behavior, un-American.

  • @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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    271 year ago

    As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings,

    Liar!

    • @btaf45@lemmy.world
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      81 year ago

      As an attorney who is also a Christian,

      The bible says “Do not spread false reports”.

      So she failed at both of these things.

      • @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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        21 year ago

        I couldn’t care less about her claiming to be a Christian - it’s meaningless really.

        … but acting to undermine democracy is the antithesis of ethical behavior. I’m not just saying “it’s bad”, I mean that in whatever ethical paradigm you wish to use, acting against the interests of many millions of people for your own benefit is unethical.

        She claims that her guilt arises through some sort of negligence, a failure to do the due diligence. If that’s the way she wants to frame it then “egregious” doesn’t begin to describe this failure. Bold claims require bold evidence. Any idiot could see that her client was spreading misinformation and she was complicit. “Knowingly” is barely relevant.

        • @btaf45@lemmy.world
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          11 year ago

          I couldn’t care less about her claiming to be a Christian - it’s meaningless really.

          There are 2 aspects about this I care about. (1). I am getting more and more outraged that Christianity has become a gateway drug for neofascist extremism every time I hear one of these jerks making a big deal about being a “Christian”. (2) The hypocrisy of these “Christians” simply pisses me off. It’s obvious they ignore everything the bible says that they don’t like, so why the pompous arrogance about membership in something you don’t take at all seriously?

    • @makyo@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      The moment I really understood who she is was when Molly Jong-Fast tweeted something about Ellis and she thought her best zinger retort would be to criticize Molly’s appearance. Pfah, Christian - she’s a terrible human being.

    • WHYAREWEALLCAPS
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      161 year ago

      Given how RICO works, every guilty plea increases the odds just by virtue of being a guilty plea.

      • Orbituary
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        1 year ago

        Whoa. Let’s change the colloquial use of CRT to Convicted Rapist Trump.

  • @superguy@lemm.ee
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    121 year ago

    She was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution.

    That’s the penalty for subverting American democracy?

    • @ashok36@lemmy.world
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      131 year ago

      It’s a message.

      “Cooperate in nailing Trump to the wall and look at what a sweetheart deal I can give you. Don’t wait too long though, or someone else might get the deal before you do…”

      I was actually kind of worried about Powell and Chesebro getting deals because Willis had a really good reason to avoid their trial happening. It seemed to me that she was getting them off the table to focus on the larger trial in the spring. Having Ellis flip changes that analysis since she wouldn’t have been such a priority to get off the docket. I think Willis got something good from Powell and Chesebro and is going to each of the conspirators now and showing them how truly fucked they are.

    • __
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      41 year ago

      It is when you then use the events you witnessed to testify and roll up the people who were directly and proximately responsible for that nightmare.

      I do not think that her participation was so critical to the events as to mean “but for” her actions the plot wouldn’t have existed. I do think that “but for” TFG and Guiliani’s participation, those events never would have happened.

      Seems fair to me that she gets a lighter sentence, and the plotters responsible for the entirety of the conspiracy get justice.

      Also, she’ll certainly never practice law again when all of this is over. Minor credit blemishes are enough to fail C&F in some places, can’t see a state bar overlooking this.

  • @TallonMetroid@lemmy.world
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    31 year ago

    Is there a specific legal definition for “disavow”? Because the lay definition is along the lines of “has no knowledge/approval of”, which is a weird thing to say when also pleading guilty.

    • @elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      The definition I got (wherever Siri gets hers from) is “deny any responsibility or support for”. By pleading guilty she’s implicitly taking responsibility so I’m guessing the operative “or support” is working its ass off in this case.

  • @SmokumJoe@lemmy.world
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    31 year ago

    My hope in all of this ends with the Mangolini in prison. The day Trump reports to prison, Dick Cheney finally drops dead, Bush Jr. Strokes out, MAGA implodes.