Jenna Ellis, the Colorado legal professional who represented previous President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Workplace of Attorney Regulation Counsel.
Ellis has been the concentrate on of formal grievances pertaining to what critics characterised as her expert misconduct connected to Trump’s exertion to reverse the benefits of a cost-free and truthful election. In May possibly a criticism from the States United Democracy Centre, a Washington, D.C.-based mostly nonprofit, asked Colorado Legal professional Regulation Counsel Jessica Yates to examine Ellis for numerous alleged violations of experienced policies and impose doable “substantial skilled self-discipline.”
“The status of this criticism is that it is pending with our place of work,” Yates wrote to Newsline Friday in an emailed response to questions about the grievance.
The criticism had earlier been claimed. This is believed to be the 1st time the existence of an investigation of Ellis has been reported.
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Tries to access Ellis for remark Friday, at “The Jenna Ellis Show” and in other places, were not profitable.
Ellis appears between crucial Trump-aligned figures in the final report, introduced Thursday, of the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The report, which describes Ellis as deputy to Trump marketing campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani, concludes that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was the outcome of a Trump-led “multi-element conspiracy to overturn the lawful success of the 2020 Presidential election.”
Yates’ place of work is investigating Ellis centered on the States United Democracy Centre complaint. The grievance states “Ellis manufactured many public misrepresentations alleging fraud in the election — even as federal and condition election officers regularly found that no fraud experienced occurred that could have altered the final result and even as Mr. Trump and his allies introduced and lost over 60 lawsuits proclaiming election fraud or illegality.”
Among the a lot of alleged cases of misconduct the grievance cites, it notes that Ellis urged lawmakers in many swing states to intervene on Trump’s behalf and even certify wrong electors for Trump, and it says she drafted dishonest memos purporting to give legal rationale for then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional electoral rely on Jan. 6, 2021.
Attorneys in Colorado are subject matter to the state’s Procedures of Specialist Perform, and complaints are investigated by the lawyer regulation counsel. If the counsel decides a situation warrants prosecution, it’s heard and decided by the Business of the Presiding Disciplinary Choose. The decide could impose disciplinary actions, these types of as suspension of the attorney’s skill to apply regulation or disbarment.
“Ellis violated her experienced obligations by knowingly furnishing objectively incorrect, phony, and deceptive authorized advice that was made to even further Mr. Trump’s unlawful schemes aimed at thwarting the rely of electoral votes,” the States United Democracy Center grievance says.
In a deposition Ellis gave to the Jan. 6 committee in March, a transcript of which the committee introduced this week, she suggests that Colorado is the only condition in which she has bar membership. During the deposition a questioner referred to a $22,500 invoice Ellis submitted to Trump for operate she done in December 2020 and January 2021. Ellis invoked her Fifth Amendment suitable not to reply whether or not she gained payment.
Ellis’ Colorado attorney registration site on the Colorado Supreme Courtroom web-site — she is shown as Jenna Lynn Rives — states that she works with the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-dependent anti-abortion legislation agency. As of Friday, Ellis does not seem amongst the firm’s roster of lawyers, even though she did look there as not long ago as June.