Jenna Ellis' guilty plea just gave Trump-voting jurors 'permission' to convict: Report

Former President Donald Trump's one-time attorney Jenna Ellis is the latest to take a guilty plea, which saw her tearfully admitting to wrongdoing in a spectacle that led to derision by commentators. But the manner in which she delivered her plea could matter enormously, wrote Amanda Marcotte for Salon.

Specifically, she argued, it could give Republican-sympathetic jurors the "permission" they need to convict Trump.

Seeing one of his dedicated footsoldiers reduced to this state of victimhood could help them turn against him, Marcotte wrote.

"With her fake 'expertise,' Ellis had been at the forefront of efforts to pressure conservative judges and election officials to steal the 2020 election for Trump. Her 2023 mugshot suggested she was still confident she could bulls--t her way through anything," wrote Marcotte.

"Boy, what a difference two months makes! On Tuesday, Ellis became the third Trump lawyer to plead guilty for her role in the illegal scheme to steal the 2020 election. As she read her statement in court, gone was the cocksure grin, replaced by sobbing."

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Notably, this came after a falling out with the Trump team, in which the former president and his allies, annoyed with Ellis' closeness to rival presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, left her out to dry with legal fees. It also comes just as Michael Cohen, another former Trump lawyer, testified against him in the New York civil fraud trial.

"Lifelong con artist" Trump works on people "by preying on their less-than-honorable traits," continued Marcotte. "They target people's greed or ambition, peddling get-rich-quick schemes or glittery promises of effort-free power and fame. They make the mark feel like they are in on the con, that if you stick with the charlatan, you'll be cheating the system together.

"In both Cohen and Ellis' stories, it's easy to see how they got sucked into the drama of committing crime. Engaging in a criminal conspiracy is certainly more exciting than the paperwork-oriented life of an ethical lawyer. It was probably a rush, getting away with all the crimes — until, of course, they stopped getting away with it."

Ultimately, concluded Marcotte, Ellis' saga of putting her faith in Trump only to be charged along with him and then abandoned to her fate by the Trump team "gives Republican-voting jurors a permission structure to convict him while absolving themselves of guilt for voting for him."