A federal grand jury indicted 19 individuals, including former President Trump, in August alleging a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Prosecutor have reached plea agreements with several of the defendants and are conducting interviews to gather information about the case. Among the defendants is Jenna Ellis, the former Trump campaign lawyer, and Sidney Powell, another lawyer indicted in the case. ABC News recently obtained excerpts of these interviews, in which Ellis and Powell share details from conversations they had with Trump and other members of his team following the election. The details revealed in the interviews offer a public glimpse into key moments after the election and provide insight into Trump’s refusal to leave office after losing at the polls.
In a videotaped interview, Jenna Ellis shared that a longtime Trump aide, Dan Scavino, told her that Trump was not going to leave the White House “under any circumstances” and that “we are just going to stay in power.” This statement aligns with previous reporting from a book by Maggie Haberman. In another interview, Sidney Powell described discussions in the White House with Trump, including one where he considered making her a special counsel, though the plan never took shape. ABC also reported that Ms. Ellis and three other defendants reached plea agreements in a case against Mr. Trump and more than a dozen of his allies. Their proffer statements from these interviews were recently turned over to other defendants’ lawyers as part of the discovery process.
The prosecutor’s office has declined to comment on the information shared in the interviews, leaving it to speculation as to what impact it may have on the upcoming trial. Despite the revealing details highlighted in the interviews, Steve Sadow, Mr. Trump’s lead counsel in the Georgia case, has dismissed the information, saying that any private conversation should be considered “absolutely meaningless” in the case. The details continued to generate intrigue into the actions of Trump and his associates in challenging the election results in 2020 and the potential implications it may have on the case.
