Three attorneys linked to Donald Trump have accepted guilty pleas rather than face a jury in the Georgia election interference case, leaving Trump “confused,” a spokesperson said.
Appearing on The Absolute Truth, a show on Lindell TV — a streaming service run by “MyPillow guy” and Trump pal Mike Lindell — Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said the former president just doesn’t understand why attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Ken Chesboro would plead guilty.
“I think [Trump is] a little confused because if you’re a lawyer, you know there’s no crimes here,” said Harrington, who is a journalist, not a lawyer. “According to the law, there’s literally nothing to plead guilty to because there’s nothing that was — no laws that were broken. Speaking out against a fraudulent election and telling people to watch hearings and petition their elected officials about fraud that was happening on camera. I mean, it’s just surprising.”
Ellis, Chesboro, and Powell were charged alongside Trump and 15 others in connection with a vast racketeering scheme to undermine Georgia’s election results, and there was plenty for them to plead guilty to. Ellis pled guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings for her attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 win in the state. Ellis also admitted to the Colorado bar that she had repeatedly lied about the election. Chesboro accepted a guilty plea to one felony count of “conspiracy to commit filing false documents,” and Powell pled guilty to several misdemeanors in the state’s election interference case. As part of their deals, all three attorneys have agreed to testify truthfully for the prosecution as it brings its case against other defendants. None of the attorneys who pled guilty will face prison time.
Trump has attempted to distance himself from these former allies since their guilty pleas. Last weekend, he claimed that Powell was “never” his attorney, despite his explicit past statements that she was.
After Powell’s plea, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, Steve Sadow, said he is not concerned about her testifying. “Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, [her testimony] will be favorable to my overall defense strategy,” he said, according to the AP.
When accepting the plea agreement, a tearful Ellis said she “failed” to perform the “due diligence” that “I did not do but should have done” and expressed her “deep remorse for those failures of mine.”
“I believe in and I value election integrity,” Ellis added. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges.”