Ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis censured after admitting to repeated election falsehoods
DENVER — Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for then-President Trump’s reelection campaign and a prominent conservative media figure, has been censured by Colorado legal officials after admitting she made repeated false statements about the 2020 presidential election.
Ellis acknowledged making 10 “misrepresentations†on television and Twitter during Trump’s fight to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, according to the censure from the office of attorney regulation counsel in Colorado, where Ellis is from.
The statements include claiming on Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News show on Dec. 5, 2020, that “we have over 500,000 votes [in Arizona] that were cast illegally†and telling the conservative network Newsmax on Dec. 15 that Trump was “the true and proper victor.â€
On Nov. 20, 2020, Ellis appeared on the Newsmax show of former Trump spokesman Sean Spicer and said: “With all those states [Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia] combined we know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove that.â€
Ellis was one of several prominent conservative voices who, in the final weeks of 2020, echoed Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him. Those falsehoods fueled the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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“Respondent, through her conduct, undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public,†wrote Bryon M. Large, the disciplinary judge in the case.
Ellis becomes the latest pro-Trump attorney penalized for attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Nine lawyers in Michigan in 2021 were ordered to pay $175,000 in sanctions for a sham suit seeking to overturn the election in that swing state. The District of Columbia’s bar association disciplinary counsel in December called for the suspension of former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s law license for pursuing a baseless lawsuit challenging Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.
Ellis is based in Washington, D.C., but is from Colorado and has practiced in the state. Through her attorney, Michael Melito, she stipulated to both the findings that she’d made misrepresentations and the censure.
While Fox News guests and anchors presented former President Trump’s false allegations that voter fraud led to his defeat, boss Rupert Murdoch didn’t believe a word of it.
On Twitter on Wednesday, Ellis said: “This was politically motivated from the start from Democrats and Never Trumpers. They ultimately failed to destroy me and failed in their attempt to deprive me of my bar license. I’m glad to have this behind me and remain in good standing in ... Colorado.â€
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