Jenna Ellis, the controversial former lawyer for President Donald Trump, was censured Wednesday by Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel for violating a policy prohibiting “reckless, knowing or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys.”
“She violated this rule when, as counsel to the President Trump and the Trump campaign, she made a number of public statements about the November 2020 presidential election that were false,” a public statement posted on the office’s website says. “The public censure in this matter reinforces that even if engaged in political speech, there is a line attorneys cannot cross, particularly when they are speaking in a representative capacity.”
The censure was first reported by Colorado Newsline.
Presiding Disciplinary Judge Byron Large approved a stipulation by Ellis and the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel that she “undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public.”
The stipulation says Ellis’ made misrepresentations on Twitter and during appearances on Fox Business.
Ellis hails from Colorado and was one of the key figures in Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Democrat Joe Biden won.
She was fired from her job as a Weld County prosecutor in 2013 for making mistakes on cases, records obtained by The Colorado Sun showed.
Ellis “failed to meet the employer’s expectations” and “made mistakes on cases the employer believes she should not have made,” according to a document from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Another record says Ellis, who held the title deputy district attorney at the Weld County District Attorney’s Office, was fired for “unsatisfactory performance.”
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“The employer noted some cases were being processed that did not adhere to the Victim Rights Act,” the state labor department document says. “… There is the appearance in case documentation the claimant did not follow proper protocol for some of the cases she handled.”
The Victims Rights Act is a state law that ensures victims are involved in and informed of the case against their assailant. There’s also a federal version that offers similar assurances and protections.
In August, The Associated Press reported that a Colorado judge ordered Ellis to travel to Georgia to testify before a special grand jury that’s looking into whether Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Ellis is listed as an advisory fellow in constitutional law and policy at the Centennial Institute, the nonprofit conservative political think tank associated with Colorado Christian University in Lakewood.