Jenna Ellis, the former lawyer for Donald Trump who pleaded guilty last year in Georgia to a felony charge for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state, is barred from practicing law for three years in Colorado.
Ellis agreed to a stipulated disciplinary order with Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel that was approved Tuesday by a judge. To reinstate her law license at the end of the three-year suspension she will have to file a petition.
Colorado law says every person convicted of a felony “shall be disqualified from … practicing as an attorney in any courts of this state during the actual time of confinement or commitment to imprisonment or release from actual confinement on conditions of probation.”
“While disbarment is the presumptive sanction for (Ellis’) misconduct, it is significant that her criminal culpability was due to her conduct as an accessory, not as a principle,” the stipulation says. “She has also expressed remorse and has recognized the harm caused by her misconduct and has taken significant, concrete steps to mitigate the harm her misconduct has caused.”
In a letter earlier this month to to the Colorado Supreme Court, Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel and the judge presiding over her disciplinary case, Ellis expressed regret.
“In the beginning of my involvement I genuinely believed that the election challenges were made in good faith — basically a repeat of a Bush v. Gore situation, not an effort to undermine the public faith in the integrity of elections,” she wrote. “But I admit that I was overly zealous in believing the ‘facts’ being peddled to support the challenge, which were manufactured and false. Had I done my duty in investigating these alleged facts before promoting them as the truth, I do not believe I would be here. I turned a blind eye to the possibility that senior lawyers for the Trump campaign were embracing claims they knew or should have known were false. I just went along with it. I was wrong.”
She added: “I will hopefully encourage others who may still believe that the election was ‘stolen’ to consider changing their position. Everything that has come out since has not proven that claim.”
Ellis pleaded guilty in Georgia in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. The Associated Press reported she had been facing charges of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, and soliciting the violation of oath by a public officer, both felonies.
Ellis was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. She had agreed to cooperate with Georgia prosecutors as their case against Trump and his other aides moves forward.
The Coloradan played a public-facing role in Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, often appearing at news conferences and on television to spread election conspiracies.
Ellis was previously censured by Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel in March 2023 for violating a policy prohibiting “reckless, knowing or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys.”
Prior to her work with Trump, Ellis was a prosecutor in Weld County, a job she was fired from 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.”
“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.