The Colorado Sun revealed in a report published on Tuesday that Jenna Ellis, an attorney currently representing President Trump in his legal battle to overturn the election, was fired as a Weld County prosecutor for making mistakes on cases, contradicting her account of why she was terminated.
Ellis was fired from her position as deputy district attorney at the Weld County District Attorney’s Office in 2013. Ellis claimed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that she was fired for refusing to bring a case to trial, believing it to be unethical prosecution.
Records from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment obtained by the newspaper showed that Ellis “made mistakes on cases the employer believes she should not have made,” and “failed to meet the employer’s expectations.”
One of the documents obtained said, “The employer noted some cases were being processed that did not adhere to the Victim Rights Act.” The Sun notes that the Victims Rights Act ensures that victims are informed and involved in the case against their assailant.
“There is the appearance in case documentation the claimant did not follow proper protocol for some of the cases she handled,” the documents said.
Records stated that Ellis was fired for “unsatisfactory performance.”
Though Ellis did not respond to the Sun’s report, the Trump campaign replied on her behalf in an extremely brief statement.
“This is a nonstory from a decade ago trying to damage her reputation simply because she works for President Trump,” the statement reads.
Ellis applied for unemployment benefits, though her termination would normally have excluded her from this program in Colorado, the Sun notes. When the Weld County District Attorney’s Office appealed the decision to grant her benefits, an agency hearing officer stated that the errors Ellis made were “few when compared to the total number of cases handled by (her) overall.”
Documents from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said, “There were some deficiencies in her education and experience that account for some of the errors she committed while learning on the job under high-volume conditions,” and added, “[Ellis] did the best she could with her education and training to meet the expectations of the employer.”
Ellis graduated from University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia in 2011. She previously said she was “the Cinderella story of the legal world” due to not coming from an Ivy League background nor having experience in a major law firm.
Last week, Ellis, along with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, were the latest of Trump’s allies to test positive for the coronavirus.
Ellis is scheduled to appear before the Colorado legislature’s Legislative Audit Committee on Tuesday to testify on Colorado’s election integrity. According to the Sun there have been no reports of widespread voter fraud in Colorado so far.