In the weeks after the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump was told by several aides and allies that he had lost his legal challenges to overturn his loss to President Biden, but he planned to stay in office anyway, lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell told Georgia prosecutors shortly before accepting plea deals in Fulton County's sprawling election conspiracy case, ABC News and The Washington Post reported Monday night.
ABC News and the Post both obtained footage of confidential interviews Ellis and Powell gave to Fulton County prosecutors to preview their potential testimony in exchange for guilty pleas to lesser charges. The Post also published video of the proffer sessions for the other two election conspiracy defendants who have taken plea deals: lawyer Kenneth Chesebro and bail bondsman Scott Hall. Neither news organization explained how they obtained the videos, but these proffers "were recently turned over to other defendants' lawyers as part of the discovery process," The New York Times reported.
Ellis testified that after she told close Trump aide Dan Scavino at a Dec. 19 White House Christmas party that the election challenges were "essentially over" after a Supreme Court loss, Scavino replied "in an excited tone" that "we don't care, and we're not going to leave,'" adding, "The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power."
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Powell told prosecutors she witnessed several White House lawyers tell Trump he had to leave office, and that she saw co-defendant Rudy Giuliani brief Trump about plans to gain access to Georgia voting equipment. Chesebro testified he told Trump about the plan to use fake electors to overturn his loss.
It's not clear how valuable this evidence, if repeated in court, would prove to prosecutors. Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman told the Post the Fulton County investigation was a "farce," while Trump lawyer Steve Sadow called the "purported private conversation" described by Ellis "absolutely meaningless" because Trump did, in fact, leave office. The Post said Ellis' testimony "could be deemed hearsay," though legal analyst Ryan Goodman disagreed. He told CNN that her "golden evidence" in the case "could be very significant" for both Georgia and federal prosecutors. "If they can show that Trump knew he lost and was still going to try to hold on to power, that's it, that's game over," Goodman argued.
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