Courts & Litigation Democracy & Elections

The Lawfare Podcast: Pleas Please Me, Jenna Ellis

Benjamin Wittes, Anna Bower, Jen Patja
Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 8:00 AM
What is the impact of the Fulton County plea deals? 

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Another morning, another surprise plea deal in Fulton County Superior Court. It was Jenna Ellis this time, in front of Judge Scott McAfee, pleading out of the Fulton County election interference case. There was a tearful colloquy and a letter of apology to the people of Georgia. There is a cooperation agreement of some kind, and there is yet another sentence of probation.

Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down to talk about it all with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower. They talked about how big a deal Jenna Ellis could be for Fani Willis, about how the DA's record is stacking up, about who might be next, and about who's going to hold out and force this whole thing to trial.


Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Anna Bower is Lawfare’s Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent. Anna holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Cambridge and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. She joined Lawfare as a recipient of Harvard’s Sumner M. Redstone Fellowship in Public Service. Prior to law school, Anna worked as a judicial assistant for a Superior Court judge in the Northeastern Judicial Circuit of Georgia. She also previously worked as a Fulbright Fellow at Anadolu University in Eskişehir, Turkey. A native of Georgia, Anna is based in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.

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