Ellis told Georgia prosecutors Trump planned ‘to stay in power’: ABC News

by Brett Samuels - 11/13/23 6:41 PM ET

Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis told Georgia prosecutors that then-President Trump did not plan to leave the White House “under any circumstances” after losing the 2020 election, according to video obtained and published by ABC News.

The video shows part of an interview Ellis conducted with prosecutors in Georgia investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s election results in 2020. Ellis last month reached a plea agreement in the case.

In the video, Ellis describes a conversation she had with former senior Trump White House official Dan Scavino around Dec. 19, 2020. She tells prosecutors she “emphasized to him I thought the claims and the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over,” and Scavino responded that Trump and his team didn’t care.

“He said, ‘The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power,'” Ellis said. “And I said to him, ‘Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize.’ And he said, ‘We don’t care.'”

The video provides insight into the types of information Ellis and others who are cooperating with prosecutors may be providing into what was happening in Trump’s orbit following the 2020 election, when the former president constantly made false allegations that the results were fraudulent, even as his own campaign’s court challenges were rejected and debunked.

Ellis, who once described herself as part of an “elite strike force team” of attorneys pursuing unfounded claims of election fraud, pleaded guilty last month to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

Like the two other former Trump campaign attorneys who took plea deals, Ellis agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants, including the former president.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) charged Ellis, the former president and 17 others in August in a sprawling racketeering indictment that accused all of them of entering an unlawful conspiracy to keep Trump in power following the 2020 election.