Video of proffer interviews of Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell shows the former Trump attorneys describing to Fulton County prosecutors plans to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
Generally speaking, a proffer is an offer of proof or evidence in support of a legal argument. A proffer meeting in a criminal case is where the prosecution and defense discuss the facts of the case.
Both Ellis and Powell were among the initial 19 co-defendants, including former President Trump, who were indicted by a grand jury on racketeering charges related to attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election, following a more-than two-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Ellis struck a guilty plea deal with prosecutors in October, five days after Powell struck her own deal. Both agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for reduced charged, as did fellow former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro as well as Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall.
In portions of the proffer video obtained by ABC News, Ellis recounted a moment during the 2020 White House Christmas party, on December 19—eleven days after the December 8 deadline for legally contesting the election results in state courts—during which she said Trump aide Dan Scavino told her the then-President planned to flat-out refuse to leave the White House in January 2021.
“He said to me in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave,'” Ellis said in the video.
Referring to Trump as “the boss,” she elaborated, “[Scavino] said, ‘The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.’ And I said to him, ‘Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize,’ and he said, ‘We don’t care.'”
In her proffer video, Powell also told prosecutors that Trump was determined to stay in power, despite aides telling him repeatedly that he had lost the election.
Powell described Trump’s reaction to his aides’ claim, saying, “It was like—well, they would say that, and then they’d walk out, and he’d go, ‘See? This is what I deal with all day.'” Powell waved her hands in mock frustration while repeating Trump’s alleged statement.
Trump’s lead counsel in Georgia, Steve Sadow, said on Monday that “any purported private conversation” should be considered “absolutely meaningless” in the case.
“The only salient fact to this nonsense line of inquiry is that President Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, and returned to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Sadow said, referring to Trump’s country club residence. “If this is the type of bogus, ridiculous ‘evidence’ DA Willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political travesty of a case must be dismissed.”
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Trump is facing 13 criminal counts in Fulton County, including racketeering, solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit filing false documents, and conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree.
Altogether among four separate indictments—two federal indictments, a New York State indictment and the Georgia indictment, Trump is facing a total of 91 criminal charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
PHOTO: Sidney Powell (left) and Jenna Ellis, November 19 2020
Read more exclusive news from Political IQ.
