Trump 2020 lawyer admits misrepresenting stolen election claims
Jenna Ellis, an attorney for Donald Trump who helped drive his false claims about the 2020 election results, has admitted in a Colorado disciplinary proceeding that she misrepresented evidence at least 10 times during Trump’s frantic bid to subvert his defeat.
“Respondent made these misrepresentations on Twitter and on various television programs, including Fox Business, MSNBC, Fox News, and Newsmax,” Colorado’s top disciplinary judge Bryon Large wrote in a six-page opinion. “The parties agree that by making these misrepresentations, Respondent violated [a state attorney rule of conduct], which provides that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”
Large issued a public censure of Ellis for her stipulated conduct.
Ellis is the latest Trump attorney involved in the former president’s post-election efforts to face discipline. Rudy Giuliani had his license temporarily suspended and is awaiting a final ruling from a bar discipline proceeding in Washington, D.C. John Eastman is preparing for disciplinary proceedings in California. And Jeffrey Clark has temporarily delayed bar discipline proceedings against him in Washington while attempting to bring the fight into federal court.
But Ellis is the first attorney of the group to acknowledge she misrepresented the evidence of fraud. Among her admitted misrepresentations:
— Ellis claimed on Nov. 13, 2020 that Hillary Clinton didn’t concede the 2016 election.
— On Nov 20, 2020, Ellis claimed Trump’s team had evidence of a “coordinated effort in all of these states to transfer votes either from Trump to Biden, to manipulate the ballots, to count them in secret.”
— On Nov. 30, 2020, Ellis said on Fox that Trump “won in a landslide.”
— On Dec. 5, 2020, Ellis claimed the Trump team found 500,000 illegal votes had been cast in Arizona.
Both Ellis’ attorney and the disciplinary attorneys bringing the case against her agreed that there was no precedent for the case against Ellis — an effort to aid a sitting president’s bid to undermine confidence in the American election system.
Large noted that Ellis wasn’t Trump’s counsel of record in any lawsuits challenging the election. But he also noted that Ellis admitted her actions violated “her duty of candor to the public.”
“The parties agree that two aggravators apply — [Ellis] had a selfish motive and she engaged in a pattern of misconduct — while one factor, her lack of prior discipline, mitigates her misconduct,” Large determined.