‘The boss is not going to leave’: Proffer videos show ex-Trump lawyers telling Georgia prosecutors about efforts to overturn 2020 election

As a part of a plea deal, one in all former President Donald Trump’s lawyers has instructed prosecutors in Georgia that she used to be knowledgeable within the wake of the 2020 election that Donald Trump used to be “not going to leave” the White House — even though he had already misplaced the election and maximum of his next demanding situations.

The revelation, along side others, got here all over a confidential interview the legal professional, Jenna Ellis, had with Fulton County investigators. ABC News has bought parts of videos of the proffer periods of each Ellis and Sidney Powell, two lawyers who aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The videos for the primary time disclose main points of what they’ve instructed legislation enforcement since agreeing to cooperate ultimate month within the district legal professional’s election interference case.

Ellis, in her proffer consultation, knowledgeable prosecutors that senior Trump White House respectable Dan Scavino instructed her “the boss” would refuse to depart the White House regardless of shedding the election, and alluded to two different cases she stated have been “relevant” to prosecutors — however gave the impression to be averted from disclosing the ones within the video parts bought by means of ABC News due to attorney-client privilege, which hindered parts of her proffer.

Powell, in the meantime, defined to prosecutors her plans for seizing vote casting machines national and claimed that she continuously communicated with Trump all over her efforts to overturn the 2020 election — despite the fact that each now declare she used to be by no means his legal professional.

In the consultation, Powell reiterated the false statement that Trump gained the election — however stated within the video that she did not know a lot about election legislation to start with.

“Did I know anything about election law? No,” she instructed Fulton County prosecutors. “But I understand fraud from having been a prosecutor for 10 years, and knew generally what the fraud suit should be if the evidence showed what I thought it showed.”

A spokesperson for the Fulton County District Attorney did not reply to a request for remark. Attorneys for Ellis and Powell declined to remark when reached by means of ABC News. Scavino additionally did not reply to a request for remark..

In a commentary to ABC News, Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead suggest within the Fulton County case, referred to as the “purported private conversation,” as described by means of Ellis, “absolutely meaningless.”

“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 stated. “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.”

Proffer periods, which can be frequently required as a part of plea offers, happen when a defendant meets with legislation enforcement to divulge information that may be useful to prosecutors. The videos bought by means of ABC News do not seem to depict Ellis and Powell’s complete proffer periods, however quite seem to be excerpts that overall just about an hour and a part. At one level within the videos, prosecutors point out that Powell, in her consultation, responded “three hours of questions.”

Trump and 18 others pleaded not responsible in August to all fees in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election within the state of Georgia. Ellis and Powell, as well as to two different defendants, have since agreed to plead responsible to diminished fees and keep away from prison time in alternate for his or her cooperation within the case.

The former president has blasted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation as being politically motivated.

‘We are simply going to keep in energy’

Ellis, who at one level used to be one in all Trump’s maximum dependable lieutenants, continuously gave the impression on TV and in high-profile legislative periods spreading false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election. In overall, the Trump marketing campaign paid her just about $195,000 for her criminal services and products between 2019 and 2021, in accordance to Federal Election Commission information.

In the video of prosecutors’ Oct. 23 proffer consultation with Ellis, she stated that one in all Trump’s best White House aides, Dan Scavino, allegedly instructed her “in an excited tone” at a White House Christmas birthday party weeks after the 2020 election that “the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances.”

Ellis particularly famous all over the proffer consultation that the alleged remark from Scavino, who labored for Donald Trump for many years on the Trump Organization sooner than becoming a member of his first presidential bid, got here in reaction to her apologizing over the loss of good fortune with their election demanding situations in court docket, culminating with a Supreme Court loss that indicated their skill to problem the election “was essentially over.”

“And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave,'” Ellis stated of the alleged Dec. 19 dialog 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 persevered, “And I said to him, ‘Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize?’ and he said, ‘We don’t care.'”

Ellis instructed prosecutors that each have been eating alcohol all over the birthday party, however that she did not consider that factored into Scavino’s obvious mindset or her reminiscence of the development, in accordance to the proffer video.

Ellis additionally instructed prosecutors that during her thoughts, the truth that Scavino introduced the information right away after she introduced up the Supreme Court loss “indicated to me that he was serious and that was in furtherance of something that he had discussed with the boss.”

The account given by means of Ellis to prosecutors, as printed within the proffer video, echoes previous reporting this 12 months from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who reported in her guide, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” that Trump had instructed aides, “I’m just not going to leave” and “we’re never leaving.”

Ellis’ account illustrates one of the crucial concrete examples but of a kind of cases, which has now been given without delay to prosecutors — who have been wary all over the alternate not to wade into spaces secure by means of attorney-client privilege.

Former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons, an ABC News contributor, stated that Ellis’ testimony might in the long run lend a hand Georgia prosecutors at trial — however that the proof would possibly not be a “kill shot,” given the remark did not come without delay from the previous president.

“Assuming Ms. Ellis testifies consistently at trial, her testimony about the Scavino conversation would help the State prove its allegation that the former President conspired with others to unlawfully change the result of the election,” stated Timmons. “But that evidence is not a ‘kill shot’ in that it didn’t come directly from the former President.”

‘Rudy referred to as me each and every title within the guide’

After Powell accredited her plea deal in Georgia on Oct. 19, Trump temporarily took to social media to check out to distance himself from Powell. “Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to ask the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS,” Trump wrote on Trump Social. Ahead of her plea deal, Powell via her legal professional, additionally stated she by no means represented Trump or his marketing campaign, The New York Times reported.

Still, Powell described in her proffer interview being in shut and repeated touch with then-President Trump, claiming that she continuously gained calls from Trump soliciting for updates on their efforts to overturn the election — even because the Trump marketing campaign publicly distanced itself from her in November 2020.

Powell, in her proffer, recalled a dialog with Trump through which she expressed regret to Trump that “none of our cases were panning out.”

“We were filing our cert petitions, but it wasn’t looking good for anything to happen in his direction,” Powell stated of her criminal demanding situations. “He always wanted to know where things were in terms of finding fraud that would change the results of the election.”

Powell additionally indexed a couple of conferences she had with Trump, his best advisers and the marketing campaign — together with her take at the now-infamous assembly held within the White House Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, through which Trump and his advisers allegedly mentioned seizing vote casting machines as a part of their effort to contest the election.

Trump, stated Powell, “was specifically willing to appoint me special counsel” — a transfer that may have granted her really extensive criminal powers. “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,'” she stated within the video.

“And then somebody said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a security clearance,'” Powell stated. “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, who mentioned the Dec. 18 assembly in her deposition with the House make a selection committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault, instructed the committee that she took Cipollone’s remark to imply that Trump “wasn’t getting the legal counsel he needed, or the support from his staff.”

The Oval Office assembly, which used to be additionally attended by means of Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn and then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has been described by means of assets as extremely contentious.

During her proffer, Powell stated it used to be her trust that Trump sought after her to pursue the seizing of vote casting machines, and defined to prosecutors how she would have finished it.

“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 stated, referring to a draft government order Trump regarded as signing, however did not, that may have given the Director of National Intelligence the facility to habits an review of any information indicating {that a} overseas executive, or somebody performing as an agent of or on behalf of a overseas executive, used to be interfering within the election.

When requested how she would have decided which states to goal, Powell stated she would have thinking about states that she believed had “statistical anomalies” — regardless of there being no proof of such anomalies.

Though Powell instructed prosecutors it used to be transparent she would not get the particular suggest appointment, she stated she nonetheless adopted up with Meadows the next day to come.

“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 stated. “He essentially laughed — I mean he said, you know, ‘It’s not going to happen.'”

Powell additionally recounted an extra assembly with Meadows and Trump legal professional Rudy Giuliani, with whom she labored to problem the election effects, that she stated were given “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 stated.

‘If I used to be proper, he would stay president’

In discussing her direct conversations and conferences with Trump, Powell, within the parts of her proffer interview bought by means of ABC News, instructed prosecutors that she by no means heard Trump concede that he misplaced the election even after being instructed by means of key aides that he had. Instead, she stated he used to be following “instincts” that he gained.

“All his instincts told him he had been defrauded, that the election was a big fraud,” Powell stated. “Just general instincts that something wasn’t right here.”

Still, Powell stated she used to be provide when a couple of advisers instructed him he had misplaced, and prosecutors pressed Powell over why the president adopted her recommendation as a substitute of his different advisers.

“Because I didn’t think he had lost,” Powell responded, later announcing, “I saw an avenue pursuant to which, if I was right, he would remain president.”

Timmons, the previous prosecutor, additionally instructed ABC News that the partial video reviewed of Powell’s periods may finally end up serving to the protection, as a result of Powell gave the impression to sincerely consider there used to be election fraud and communicated that to Trump.

“That information would be helpful for the defense in that it bolsters a defense that the former president thought he was acting lawfully,” the previous Georgia prosecutor stated.

Ahead of the Jan. 6 assault at the Capitol, Powell stated she remembered telling “everybody that I needed to get the hell out of D .C.” as a result of she “didn’t think any of it was a good idea.”

“I just saw it as a really bad idea to have a rally over the end of the Trump presidency. I just wouldn’t have encouraged people,” stated Powell, who made identical feedback in her deposition with the House make a selection Jan. 6 committee.

“In fact, there are several people that had plans to come up that I told not to come, and they didn’t come,” Powell stated within the proffer video.

‘Shielded from most of the people’

Ellis, within the proffer, additionally alluded to two different cases she stated have been “very relevant” to prosecutors — however she gave the impression, within the parts of the video bought by means of ABC News, to be averted from disclosing the main points due to attorney-client privilege, which hindered parts of her proffer.

The first example used to be a personal dialog she stated she had with some other legal professional whilst Giuliani used to be in the toilet after the 2 gave the impression at a legislative listening to in Georgia in early December 2020. It used to be all over that listening to that Giuliani driven officers to exchange the election effects, partially by means of pointing to a video he falsely claimed confirmed vote counts being altered by means of election employees Ruby Freeman and Shaye Freeman Moss, who later gained a defamation lawsuit towards Giuliani.

Regarding the second one example, Ellis instructed prosecutors she believed that information about the so-called pretend elector plot used to be deliberately saved from her.

“My belief, essentially, [is] that was shielded from me specifically, but also from the general public, as far as what was actually going on,” Ellis stated in regards to the plot allegedly orchestrated by means of Trump and his allies in seven key swing states to produce and post pretend certificate certifying so-called choice electors to protected Trump’s Electoral College victory in the ones states.

However, within the parts of the proffer video, prosecutors stopped Ellis from going into element on both of the ones subjects, teaching her that neither aspect sought after her to talk about any conversations that may be topic to attorney-client privilege. Ellis, in consequence, did not supply main points of the ones interactions — highlighting the level to which she gave the impression to be constrained now and then in her skill to cooperate with prosecutors.

In truth, within the parts of video bought by means of ABC, Ellis by no means mentioned any dialog she in my opinion had with Trump.

Ellis, who in her remarks alternated between talking off and on the report with prosecutors, as a substitute mentioned handiest the context surrounding the 2 incidents she could not disclose, together with announcing that she first realized about the idea that of the pretend electors plot from Giuliani and present Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn.

“There was one group [text] thread that Boris initiated when — which was the first time that I learned of it — asking me to just join a phone call,” Ellis instructed prosecutors, who then stopped her from discussing the main points of the decision.

An afternoon after her proffer interview, Ellis entered her responsible plea in Fulton County court docket — telling the court docket that she regretted her involvement with efforts to problem the election.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” Ellis tearfully instructed the pass judgement on. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse.”