August 21, 2023 02:24 PM UTC

Jenna Ellis' Desperation Begins To Show

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado-licensed attorney Jenna Ellis, indicted last week on felony charges as part of the sweeping indictment in Fulton County, Georgia against ex-President Donald Trump and his alleged conspirators in the plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has been raising money for her legal defense without help from Trump. As USA TODAY reported this morning, Ellis on Friday night took a break from her pathological self-righteousness to make it clear that the lack of support from Trump while Ellis faces felony charges for her role in Trump’s coup plot is weighing on her:

At least one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in his Georgia case over alleged attempts to steal the 2020 election is wondering why his legal defense fund isn’t helping her and others ensnared in his indictment.

“I was reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted,” said former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “Would this change if he becomes the nominee? Why then, not now?”

As readers know, Ellis is unique among the Trump coup attempt legal team in that she has already admitted to numerous false statements about the 2020 elections as part of the agreement to keep her Colorado law license. That combined with Ellis’ public defection to support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis against Trump in the GOP primary has left Ellis with little support on either side of the Republican Party’s identity crisis. As of this morning, Ellis has raised about $88,000 for her legal defense via “crowdfunding,” an estimated small fraction of the total cost of a legal defense for this high-profile trial.

And although Ellis herself hasn’t given any indication of how she intends to resolve this looming problem, everyone else is waiting for the next logical development:

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly trying to get other defendants to testify against Trump. But there is no sign that Ellis is prepared to flip. She has criticized the Trump indictments as political in nature…

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown puts a finer point on it:

With Monday’s sprawling indictment in Fulton County, Georgia…the number of allies who could cooperate with the government has grown. And based on recent reports, it seems like the famously stingy Trump isn’t helping several of his best-known co-defendants with their own legal bills. That decision may save Trump cash in the short term, but it could very well come back to bite him in the long run. [Pols emphasis]

An important purpose of the racketeering law Ellis is charged with breaking is to motivate lesser players in a criminal conspiracy to set their loyalty aside and turn on their highers-up. In this case, Trump may be helping prosecutors immensely by weakening the bonds of that loyalty through his own small-minded treatment of his former conspirators.

Because Ellis has already admitted that Trump’s claims to have won the 2020 presidential election were false, Ellis is useless to Trump’s expected dogmatic defense of the “Big Lie” to convince jurors that Trump truly believed it–in fact, she’s a huge problem standing in the way of that defense. The trouble for Trump, whether he perceives it or not, is that by cutting her off financially Trump may be giving Ellis no choice but to testify against Trump in order to save herself. And as the only Trump attorney so far to have publicly retracted the “Big Lie” in whole or part, Ellis is the most likely to do so.

It’s up to Ellis now to realize that being Trump’s patsy has no value.