Donald Trump's election attorney Jenna Ellis was fired from her job as a state prosecutor for making mistakes and breaking Victim Rights Act, documents reveal
Jenna Ellis, the lawyer helping guide President Trump's effort to overturn the election, was fired after making 'mistakes' in cases while serving as a state prosecutor in Colorado, documents reveal.
Her file also shows she failed to follow 'protocol' for Victims' Rights cases before being terminated from the Weld County prosecutors just months after her hiring in August 2012.
But she only botched a fraction of her cases. The errors were 'few when compared to the total number of cases handled by overall,' a state hearing officer found when Ellis sought to receive unemployment despite her firing.
Donald Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis was fired from her job as a state prosecutor after making 'mistakes' in cases, documents reveal
The explanation for her firing was contained in documents unearthed by the Colorado Sun, which obtained state labor department documents showing she 'failed to meet the employer’s expectations” and “made mistakes on cases the employer believes she should not have made.”
'The employer noted some cases were being processed that did not adhere to the Victim Rights Act,' the documents revealed, in reference to a state law on informing crime victims.
The documents, however, only allude to the specifics of what happened. 'There is the appearance in case documentation the claimant did not follow proper protocol for some of the cases she handled.”
The documents came through an open records request, and follow reports that undercut Ellis' claims to be a constitutional expert before landing the nation's most high-profile client.
The show a state department ultimately awarded her unemployment benefits despite her firing.
Ellis held her phone to the mic when President Trump called into a hearing-style event
Ellis spent months as a prosecutor in Colorado before being fired in 2013
Ellis sought unemployment, which brought on a review process of her termination
Ellis, 36, found fame on Fox News defending the president before joining his legal team's effort to overturn the election.
She was subject to profiles in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, who questioned her billing herself as a 'constitutional lawyer' and traces her rapid rise from the Colorado legal system to the president's defender.
The Journal reported she told the paper she got fired after 'she refused to bring a case to trial that she believed was an unethical prosecution' – although the documents reviewed by the Sun don't appear to reflect that.
The Trump camp responded to the story by telling the paper: 'This is a nonstory from a decade ago trying to damage her reputation simply because she works for President Trump.'
As part of the 'elite strike force team' defending Trump, Ellis and Trump allies have racked up dozens of losses. On Friday the Supreme Court refused to take up a suit filed by the Texas attorney general seeking to overturn the vote in four states Joe Biden won.
At an infamous press conference where Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's hair dye ran down the side of his face, Ellis bristled at the demand for actual evidence of voter fraud, saying: 'Your question is fundamentally flawed when you're asking where is the evidence.'
She held her cell phone to a microphone at a Pennsylvania hearing-style event staged by Republicans where Trump called in to raise a series of claims about voter fraud that judges have tossed out of court.
She was paid nearly $140,000 from the Trump campaign in October for what was described as legal consulting, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Four years ago, Ellis was a young Colorado attorney practicing in county courts and teaching legal classes at Colorado Christian University, a local Christian university that doesn't have a law school.
She would eventually run the Dobson Center, which is affiliated with the James Dobson Family Institute, an influential social conservative group.