A lawyer, a member of Donald Trump’s team who is accused by Georgia courts of participating in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Atlanta and could now face the former President of the United States testify.
• Also read: Trump faces testimony in his civil trial from a loyalist who became his archenemy
• Also read: Trump’s third co-defendant in Georgia pleads guilty
• Also read: Donald Trump fined $5,000 and sternly warned after online insults
Jenna Ellis, 38, is the fourth person among the 19 defendants in the case to agree with the courts to plead guilty, a defection that weakens the 2024 Republican candidate’s defense.
In a court document, she admitted to helping the lawyers leading the team, including Rudy Giuliani, submit false documents to the Georgia state Senate in an attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election in that southern state in favor of Donald Trump.
In doing so, “I failed to do my job properly,” she said in a statement Tuesday morning.
In tears in the courtroom, Jenna Ellis explained, according to a television program, “as a lawyer and as a Christian” that she should have made sure that the facts she presented at the time were “in fact true.”
“I believe in the integrity of elections. “If I had known what I know now, I would have refused to represent Donald Trump in this post-election process,” she said in an Atlanta court.
“I look back on this whole moment with great regret,” she said. Her agreement with the courts spares her a possible prison sentence: she is now sentenced to five years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine.
A total of 19 defendants, including Mr. Trump, are named in the indictment released on August 14, based on a Georgia organized crime law used by prosecutor Fani Willis.
Last week, the former president’s other lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell (whom Mr. Trump denies were his lawyer), pleaded guilty in the case. A first defendant, Scott Hall, had already pleaded guilty at the end of September.
This fourth guilty plea trial in Georgia takes place on the same day as the expected confrontation in New York, in a very different case, in civil and real estate matters, between Donald Trump and Michael Cohen, also a former lawyer for the Republican billionaire who has chosen to do so to testify against him.
The date of the trial in Atlanta is not yet known.
The former president, who is leading the race in the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election, is the target of several lawsuits, including a federal trial that begins March 4 in Washington, over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The former president has denounced his legal troubles as “election interference” at the behest of the Biden administration to disqualify him from the race for the White House.