Trump power grab comes into focus in leaked Georgia videos
by Ella Lee - 11/15/23 6:00 AM ETLeaked videos showing four Georgia defendants speaking to prosecutors in the racketeering case involving former President Trump are bringing into focus the ex-president’s desperate grab for power after losing the 2020 presidential race.
“The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances,” then-White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino told ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, according to Ellis’s testimony to Fulton County prosecutors a day before she entered her guilty plea.
“We are just going to stay in power,” he said.
The videos, first reported by ABC News, place Trump at the top of the chain of command of efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia in his favor.
The defendants’ proffer statements bolster the narrative Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis laid out in her 98-page indictment charging Trump and 18 co-defendants with joining a criminal enterprise bent on keeping Trump in the White House.
“The entire idea behind the indictment is that Donald Trump was driving the bus and doing so in a way that was only intended to secure power,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. “To the extent that this kind of evidence supports that theory, I think it’s really damning to the good-faith justifications that have been put out by his allies and his attorneys.”
ABC News on Monday afternoon published videos of Ellis and another former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, giving confidential interviews to prosecutors. Later that evening, The Washington Post published additional details of the interviews, which also described interviews with another Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, and Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall.
All four defendants pleaded guilty to lesser charges as part of agreements with state prosecutors. The videos revealed new details about what information the defendants have provided to law enforcement since agreeing to cooperate in the state’s case.
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https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4309830-trump-power-grab-leaked-georgia-videos/
