Jenna Ellis is poised to become Trump's worst nightmare: legal experts

Due to stipulations contained within her plea deal with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, former Donald Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis is poised to become a major weapon that multiple prosecutors will use against her old boss.

That is the opinion of attorneys Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland in a column for the New York Times, where they explain that Ellis immediately moves to the top of the list over fellow Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell when it comes to insiders who can hand prosecutors what they are searching for while at the same time providing pertinent testimony that can cripple a key defense argument Trump's current lawyers are expected to deploy.

As the two legal experts point out, Ellis' plea deal compels her “to fully cooperate with prosecutors,” while also “appearing for evidentiary hearings, and assisting in pretrial matters.”

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With all indications that Ellis will now be a key witness in Trump's racketeering trial in Georgia, Eisen and Copeland wrote her "... likely trial testimony will also hit Mr. Trump hard. She has now effectively repudiated his claims that he won the election — an argument that is expected to be a centerpiece of his trial defense. Coming from a formerly outspoken MAGA champion, her disagreement has the potential to resonate with jurors."

"Ms. Ellis’s testimony may also compromise one of Mr. Trump’s main defenses. He has made clear he intends to claim he relied on advice of counsel. But that defense is available only if the lawyers are not part of the alleged crimes," they continued. "Ms. Ellis’s plea puts her squarely within the conspiracy, as do those of Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell. That will hamper Mr. Trump’s effort to present a reliance-on-counsel defense."

They also note that Ellis could become a key weapon for special counsel Jack Smith since she was not included as an unindicted co-conspirator when he charged the former president, meaning he has leverage to offer her a sweetheart immunity deal in return for her testimony.

Worse still for Trump, they wrote, is that her testimony in Georgia will be televised which could further damage him.

"With Mr. Trump showing no signs of backing down from his claims of 2020 election fraud and a new election upon us, Ms. Ellis’s plea — like the televised Jan. 6 committee testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, another Trump insider who turned on him with powerful effect — could be a potential turning point in the court of public opinion," they wrote. "When Mr. Trump’s lies are repeated in the future, in whatever venue, expect to see Ms. Ellis often."

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