Attorney Jenna Ellis informed Georgia prosecutors that one of former President Donald Trump’s top advisers told her after the 2020 election that “the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances,” according to a report.
Ellis, 39, flipped on Trump, 77, last month in the Fulton County, Ga., election fraud case, agreeing to cooperate with District Attorney Fani Willis’ office and plead guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings in exchange for no prison time.
In a meeting with Georgia prosecutors on Oct. 23, the former Trump loyalist told the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office that she was informed at a White House Christmas Party – weeks after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden – that the former president would refuse to leave office despite having lost litigation challenging the election results, according to ABC News.
“The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power,” Trump aide Dan Scavino allegedly told Ellis of the 45th president — which she then relayed to Willis’ team just one day before she entered her guilty plea.
Ellis noted that Scavino, the former White House deputy chief of staff, made the remark “in an excited tone” after she apologized to him for the legal defeats Trump suffered while contesting the election results, including losing in the Supreme Court, according to the outlet.
“‘Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize?’” Ellis recounted responding to Scavino. “And he said, ‘We don’t care.’”
The attorney also noted that both her and Scavino were drinking during the function but that she did not believe it affected her memory of the event or Scavino’s mindset.
During the proffer session, Ellis explained that Scavino’s remark “indicated to me that he was serious and that was in furtherance of something that he had discussed with the boss.”
Former Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell, who accepted a plea deal in the case on Oct. 19, also held a proffer interview with Georgia prosecutors and told them that Trump would frequently call her despite the Trump campaign’s attempts to publicly distance itself from her in November 2020, according to ABC News.
Trump “always wanted to know where things were in terms of finding fraud that would change the results of the election,” she told the Fulton County DA’s team.
Powell recalled that Trump considered naming her special counsel to investigate his election fraud claims.
“In fact, he looked over at [White House Counsel Pat] Cipollone three different times and said, ‘Do I have the authority to name her special counsel?’ and Cipollone said, ‘Yes, you do,’” Powell said during the proffer session.
“And then somebody said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a security clearance,’” she added. “So he looked at Cipollone and he said, ‘Do I have the authority to give her a security clearance?’ and Cipollone said, ‘Yes, you do.’ And then about the third time we went through that scenario, Cipollone, I think, said, ‘You can name her anything you want, Mr. President, and nobody’s going to pay a bit of attention to it.’”
Powell claimed that Trump seemed to want her to seize voting machines amid his losses in the courts.
“I guess [Trump] assumed, and I would have thought, that I would have looked at putting into effect a provision of 13848 that would have allowed the machines to be secured in four or five states or cities,” Powell said, referencing a draft executive order Trump considered signing.
Powell added that she followed up with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the special counsel gig even though she believed she wouldn’t actually be placed in the role.
“I called Mark Meadows the next morning just to run it to ground, and said, ‘Hey, when can I come pick up my badge and my key?’” Powell said. “He essentially laughed – I mean he said, you know, ‘It’s not going to happen.’”
Powell also touched on her experience working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to challenge the 2020 election results, explaining that things got “really ugly.”
“There was a big shouting match in which Rudy called me every name in the book and I was the worst lawyer he’d ever seen in his life. There were no circumstances under which he’d work with me on anything. He called me a bitch and I don’t know what all, and that’s pretty much all I remember about that one,” she told Georgia prosecutors.
A spokesman for Giuliani told The Post that Powell’s account absolves him from any criminal wrongdoing. The former New York City mayor faces 13 felony counts in the case.
“The government’s main witness, Sidney Powell, just cleared Rudy Giuliani from any involvement in a conspiracy by making it unequivocally clear that Rudy Giuliani told her that he would never work with her on anything, under any circumstances,” Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s political advisor, said in a statement.
“If Fani Willis had any integrity, she’d dismiss the case against Rudy Giuliani and end this farce of a trial designed solely to keep President Donald Trump out of the White House in 2024,” Goodman added.
Trump, the 2024 GOP presidential primary front-runner, faces 13 felony counts in Georgia.
