December 15, 2023 01:25 PM UTC

New Complaint Filed To Pull Jenna Ellis' Law License

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Nick Coltrain reports, the next step in the road to accountability for disgraced local attorney Jenna Ellis, who pled guilty in October to a felony charge in the case against conspirators seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, is at hand with a new complaint to the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel asking for Ellis’ disbarment:

States United Democracy Center and Lawyers Defending American Democracy said they filed the complaint with the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, which oversees the practice of law in Colorado. States United Democracy Center filed a previous complaint against Ellis in May 2022 that led to a public censure for her conduct.

In October, Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony charge in Georgia of aiding and abetting false statements and writings related to efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss there.

“The lies that Jenna Ellis helped spread about fraud and misconduct by Georgia voters and election administrators poisoned public trust in our elections, endangered election workers and threatened our democracy,” Gillian Feiner, senior counsel at the States United Democracy Center, said in a statement. “Attorneys who commit crimes like this must face serious professional consequences. Ellis should be disbarred.”

In their letter sent today to Colorado attorney regulators, complainants say the new details of Ellis’ actions revealed in the Georgia case warrant further action against Ellis beyond the censure she received last spring from the same oversight authority for a list of public statements about the 2020 presidential election in her capacity as member of Donald Trump’s “Elite Strike Force” that Ellis admitted were false, and made with an “at least reckless” state of mind:

The false statements at issue in Ms. Ellis’s plea are distinct from the misrepresentations underlying Ms. Ellis’s previous censure and provide a strong basis for further discipline… [Pols emphasis] [t]he falsehoods for which Ms. Ellis was previously censured related mainly to her claims on Twitter and in media appearances that the 2020 election was stolen. The falsehoods involved in her Georgia felony guilty plea were allegations of fraud and misconduct by Georgia voters, election officials and workers. These allegations fueled the spread of disinformation about Georgia’s election process and election workers, undermine trust in American elections, discourage public participation in the electoral process, pose a threat to the safety and well-being of election workers and, accordingly, threaten democracy as a whole.

In both the censure agreement reached between Ellis and Colorado attorney regulators in March and Ellis’ plea agreement with Georgia prosecutors to a single felony charge, Ellis’ cooperation has been in large part motivated for the purpose of retaining her license to practice law. A felony conviction does not automatically result in disbarment in Colorado, and this argument that the Georgia case has revealed additional misconduct that warrants additional sanctions including disbarment is meant to overcome to defense that Ellis has already been punished enough by her censure.

It’s difficult to imagine who would hire Ellis for any kind of legal services after this, but disbarment is a tool that works where shame does not.