"In two courtrooms 800 miles apart on Tuesday, a stark reality for former President Donald Trump became clearer than ever," Politico reported: "If Trump is taken down in his myriad criminal and civil cases, it will likely be at the hands of his own former lawyers."
On Tuesday morning, Jenna Ellis became the fourth co-defendant in Trump's Georgia election interference case — and the third former Trump-affiliated lawyer — to plead guilty to lesser crimes in return for probation, financial penalties and a promise to testify truthfully against any co-defendants if called to do so by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
"If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges," a tearful Ellis told Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee. Ellis, 38, was a vocal member of what she called Trump's legal "elite strike force team" deployed to prove the 2020 election was stolen, alongside Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Powell reached a plea deal in Fulton County on Thursday, and lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty Friday. Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty on Sept. 29.
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Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified against his glowering former boss in a civil fraud trial in New York City on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, ABC News reported that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had received immunity from special counsel Jack Smith and was giving damaging sworn testimony against Trump in his federal election interference case.
With Ellis' plea deal, "nearly every high-level attorney who worked with Trump" between the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection "has provided voluminous testimony to congressional investigators or prosecutors," Politico noted.
Trump's current lawyers "have been preparing for a potential onslaught of co-defendants flipping on him" since the summer, digging up dirt on those deemed most likely to reach plea deals, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday night. But Trump's legal team is also grappling with "chronic distrust and petty feuds in their own ranks," reaching a point "where some of them have privately spread rumors or speculation this year that other Trump attorneys are secretly cooperating with federal or Fulton County prosecutors." Time will tell, but Ellis isn't expected to be the last co-conspirator to flip.
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