By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former lawyer for Donald Trump, Jenna Ellis, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to helping the then-U.S. president's efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state of Georgia and agreed to testify against Trump if called upon.
Ellis is the third member of Trump's legal team to reach a plea deal since Thursday, following Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, and the fourth of the 19 people charged in the sweeping racketeering indictment brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to agree to testify.
Ellis, her voice cracking at times, told an Atlanta court that she "failed to do my due diligence" in vetting claims about voter fraud from other Trump attorneys. She said she regretted representing Trump after the election.
"What I did not do and should have done, your honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true," Ellis told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. "I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse."
The case is one of four that Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, faces as he runs for president as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, and one of two that relate to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The guilty pleas mark significant progress for Willis in securing testimony that could implicate Trump and other more high-profile defendants in a scheme to illegally interfere in the election.
"What prosecutors tend to do is offer attractive plea deals to all the people at the bottom in order to flip on the people at the top," said Jay Abt, a Georgia criminal defense lawyer who has been involved in racketeering cases.
Ellis, 38, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
Prosecutors said she attended a meeting with Georgia lawmakers where Trump personal lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made false claims about voting irregularities. The meeting was part of an unsuccessful effort to persuade lawmakers to refuse to certify Biden's narrow victory in the state, prosecutors said.
Ellis frequently appeared alongside Giuliani in the weeks after the election, members of what Ellis called "an elite strike force" to challenge the results on Trump's behalf.
The plea agreement calls for her to be sentenced to five years of probation and $5,000 in restitution.
AVOIDING JAIL TIME
All defendants who have pleaded guilty so far have avoided jail time, a signal that prosecutors are willing to offer more lenient treatment to lower-level defendants to gain their cooperation, legal experts and attorneys said.
"My expectation is: in the cosmic scheme of things, these folks have offered something unique and helpful to the prosecution," said Amy Lee Copeland, a criminal defense lawyer and former government appellate attorney in Georgia.
It is unclear what Powell, Chesebro and Ellis have told prosecutors or how broad their testimony could be. Both Powell and Ellis are known to have had direct communication with Trump as he sought to hold onto power.
Chesebro is the only defendant to plead guilty in a scheme that prosecutors directly tied to Trump. He admitted to plotting to file false documents as part of an effort to put forward fraudulent slates of electors pledged to vote for Trump in states won by Biden.
A lawyer for Chesebro told MSNBC on Saturday that Trump should not be concerned about Chesebro's potential testimony.
Powell admitted to tampering with election machines in what prosecutors said was an effort to gain evidence for discredited vote-rigging claims.
Legal experts said the recent flurry of plea deals could put pressure on other lower-level defendants to negotiate with prosecutors in a bid for more favorable treatment.
"There's going to come a day when the state is not willing to negotiate to the extent they have in these plea deals," Copeland said.