Attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis can be expected to take the witness stand next year, when Donald Trump is tried in the Georgia RICO case where the three (along with more than a dozen others) are co-defendants.
Both Powell and Ellis have already agreed to testify in exchange for reduction of their own felony charges, however, they’ve already told their stories to prosecutors behind the scenes.
Now, some of what they’ve said has been released publicly.
Powell, for instance, shared that Trump sought advice from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone on whether he had the authority to make her Special Counsel, which would give her leave to do more “investigating” into the claims of voter fraud.
Recall, according to the indictment, she is accused of ending up taking that into her own hands anyway, hiring a tech company to break into voting machines and try to steal data.
She also said that Cipollone told Trump he could give her a security clearance.
In addition, Powell witnessed “multiple advisors” telling Trump he lost, a fact which will go into evidence to show that he knew the truth and tried to stay in power anyway.
Perhaps more damning in that realm is what Ellis shared, though.
According to her, Dan Scavino, Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff, informed her that the then-president did not plan to leave office, no matter what.
This revelation came after Ellis expressed remorse for being unable to prove any claims of voter fraud. ABC reports:
“And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave,'” Ellis said of the alleged Dec. 19 conversation with Scavino. “And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said ‘Well, the boss’, meaning President Trump — and everyone understood ‘the boss,’ that’s what we all called him — he said, ‘The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.'”
Ellis says she tried to explain to Scavino that “it doesn’t quite work that way” and he assured her, “We don’t care.”
At this point, Scavino has not been indicted, and isn’t confirming or denying anything.
However, the January 6th Committee did find that Scavino was “advising Trump throughout the day” on January 6th, and eventually recommended charges against him for refusing to respond to a subpoena and answer questions about the events surrounding Trump’s ouster and the riot. (The DOJ elected not to charge Scavino, however.)
These confessions from attorneys close to the Trump White House go hand-in-hand with prior testimony, such as that of Cassidy Hutchinson — who was an aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows when she says she heard Trump admit multiple times that he had lost, according to The Hill.
As for Meadows, he has reportedly taken an immunity deal in the federal case, which means he’s presumably already told prosecutors what he knows as well — potentially including backing up the allegation that Trump knew he had lost, and possibly with a lot more inside information about the then-president’s plans for remaining in power.
None of today’s revelations bode well for Trump’s defense.
