The odds of rapist and former president Donald Trump being convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election have jumped dramatically in just a few days, as three key lawyers who were co-defendants in the Georgia state RICO case against him have pled guilty, just as the first case against two of them was about to begin. All escaped jail time, if they testify truthfully in future proceedings. As the number of co-defendants shrinks, and those testifying against Trump rises, the likelihood of a Trump conviction before the 2024 GOP convention has become an uncomfortable unspoken reality in the GOP presidential race.
In flipping, they join a fourth co-defendant, a bail-bondsman, whose activities overlapped intensively with one of them, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, whose voter-fraud theories Trump privately regarded as “crazy,” yet whom he wanted to make a special counsel. Powell and a second Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, had both asked for speedy trials, which were scheduled to begin Oct. 23. But Powell pled guilty just before jury selection began, and Chesebro pled guilty once it had begun. Chesebro is the alleged architect of the fake electors scheme, fraudulently promoting electors from states Trump lost to the status of electors he won.
The third lawyer to flip, Jenna Ellis, worked closely with Trump’s top “legal” adviser, Rudy Giuliani, another co-defendant, particularly in lying to the Georgia state legislature.
In a tearful court apology, Ellis spoke of her personal “failures” and expressed “deep remorse.”
“I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience than I, to provide me with true and reliable information,” Ellis said. “What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were, in fact, true.”