Today we sit down with constitutional law attorney Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump campaign legal team, to get an update on their legal efforts, and what she expects the future holds.
This is American Thought Leaders, and I’m Jan Jekielek.
Jan Jekielek: Jenna Ellis, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Jenna Ellis: Thank you very much for having me.
Mr. Jekielek: So, Jenna, why don’t I just pick your brain to start with? From the campaign perspective, where are we at right now?
Ms. Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. It’s an important question, and I think since November 3, the mainstream media has tried to just say at every step of the way, “This is hopeless for Donald Trump. He should just concede, concede.” They’ve been trying to push Joe Biden through to the finish line. But this fight is not over yet, and not by a long shot.
We’re following the process that’s laid out in the US Constitution designed specifically by our Founding Fathers to make sure that corrupted elections don’t prevail. And so although we have December 14, just this past Monday, where the different slates of delegates came in those six states that we’re challenging, the GOP delegates also showed up and cast their votes.
That’s happened before in US history where there have been two slates of delegates, and there’s been controversy over the outcome of a particular state’s election and how they sent their delegates right up into the day where they go to Congress. And so the date of ultimate significance, as the Supreme Court recognized, is January 6, when Congress actually receives and counts and certifies the Electoral College.
At this point, what the campaign is doing and the legal team for the president, we are still pushing for election integrity to make sure that every legal vote is counted and counted fairly. There is still plenty of time for the state legislatures to do their constitutionally mandated job by making sure that the delegates that they send and they certify are the correct slate.
Mr. Jekielek: Exactly. There are these competing slates of delegates for a number of states. But how does that actually work? Let’s say on the 6th [of January] or even before that, what scenarios are you imagining here?
Ms. Ellis: For example, what can and should happen is that when you have a state like, say, Pennsylvania, one of the most interesting things that came out of the Texas v. Pennsylvania filing in the Supreme Court—even though in my view and a lot of constitutional experts’ view, that was wrongfully dismissed out of hand without hearing out of the Supreme Court—but what that case, one of the great things that came out of that case is that the Pennsylvania State Legislature, their leadership in both the House and the Senate filed an amicus brief admitting to the Supreme Court and telling the Supreme Court that they agreed with Texas, that their state’s laws in the administration of the 2020 election were not followed.
That gives them the basis through their investigations, their findings, all of the testimony and evidence presented by the mayor and myself at that hearing for Pennsylvania to reclaim, under Article II Section 1.2 of the US Constitution, they can reclaim their authority to select the slate of delegates. And so they have every opportunity to call themselves back into an electoral session for the purpose of voting on which slate of delegates they’re going to send. So that is what should happen in each of these six states prior to January 6.
Mr. Jekielek: So is this something that you foresee, this type of scenario that you’re describing, foresee happening in more states than just Pennsylvania?
Ms. Ellis: Well, I know that Georgia is looking at this very closely. Also Michigan with the Antrim County report that came out with all of those, not just irregularities, but sheer percentages of discrepancies and all of the violations of law that occurred in Michigan. So in Michigan, as well as Arizona and also in Wisconsin.
I think that once one state actually calls an electoral session and is willing to run that resolution to vote by simple majority and say, “We’re not going to allow corrupted, false certifications to prevail in terms of how we select our delegates,” if one state is willing to do this, I think others will follow.
Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about the findings in Antrim County. It’s absolutely fascinating. Is this creating an interest in looking at more of these machines beyond Antrim County?
Ms. Ellis: Absolutely, and it should because, of course, with these 22 machines and seeing all of what’s come out in this report, when we know that Dominion voting systems and their machines are in at least 29 states, it’s then incumbent upon those states to do their own audits. I testified actually in my home state of Colorado yesterday on an election integrity hearing that my state has been using Dominion voting machines.
And my request to them, to the state legislature, is do your own election integrity check. It’s incumbent upon the state legislatures to make sure that we’re not removing safeguards from election integrity. Do their own audit, look into these machines, look at the mail-in voting system in Colorado, look at ballot harvesting, look at the laws, look at the administration.
The pushback, of course, from Democrats is, “We’re fine. We’re fine. Nothing to see here.” And I said, “Well, if you’re so concerned about transparency and honesty, and if that conclusory statement is correct, then you’ll have no problem investigating this and making sure that the American people, and particularly Colorado voters, are assured that everything is free and fair in Colorado.”
I think that every other state in the Union really needs to take a hard look at their own election laws and the election administration to make sure that what’s happened in these six states never happens again in America.
Mr. Jekielek: Are you hearing any further rumblings around these machines actually being looked at in these other states? And furthermore, if there are more of these extensive errors, so to speak, found on the machines, what are the remedies for that?
Ms. Ellis: That’s a great question. And of course, I think that certainly the American people and those of us who love our country, we value free and fair elections, we want to preserve and protect the Constitution. There are at least 74 million Americans that voted for President Trump because they want to protect America.
It’s incumbent, though, upon every American, regardless of who you voted for, whether or not you like the outcome of this election, to stop any cheating, to stop any lawlessness, to stop anything that runs afoul of the US Constitution to make sure to protect free and fair elections. I think there is a movement among the American people who really want to get to the bottom of these questions. And so like I said to the Colorado State Legislature yesterday, “If your investigation of the Colorado machines, for example, doesn’t yield any anomalies or problems, then great. Then we rest assured in that investigation and in the results of that investigation.”
But I think that what’s come out in Michigan definitely gives rise to the necessity of these investigations in these other states. And what’s happened in the administration of the 2020 election, every state legislature should be looking at their own laws and their own administration. So I think that state legislatures like Colorado and others who aren’t part of the six states, but they’re starting to have their own election integrity hearings. They’re taking this very seriously, and I applaud them for that.
Mr. Jekielek: To your point, we hear from our readers all the time, and there’s a deep, deep concern about election integrity among them. One of the things that’s coming out actually is that some of them are feeling a bit powerless, I guess. That they’re not sure that they’re—I’ll read from one, actually, note that I have here: “How can we actually ensure that there’s proper accountability and transparency?” Someone is asking us, right, and we frankly don’t know the answer to that question. What are your thoughts?
Ms. Ellis: Well, I think that’s where all Americans seem to recognize that we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And so we the people have the ultimate say and to hold our elected leaders responsible. We can do that through not only contacting them and through putting pressure on them to continue this fight, not only in the media, but also to make sure that our elected officials know that that’s what we expect of them—to take election integrity seriously.
But there’s also in at least four of the six states that are in question, I have recall petitions that are available. And citizens in those states can start those petitions and say, “You know what, if there is a member of any party who is an elected official, who’s in the state legislature, or who’s the governor, who’s not willing to take this seriously and genuinely uphold and protect the law and the rule of law and the Constitution, we can recall them, and we can say, “No. We are going to alter the people who are in our government because clearly, they have failed us.”
I think over the last month, it’s been a failure, not only of the executive branch in the administration between the governor, these elected officials, all the way down—or these election officials, rather—all the way down through the administration of the election, but then it’s been a failure of the judicial branch, particularly the Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution in the Texas case, among others.
And so now, when we’re looking at the state legislatures, if that branch fails, then it’s up to we the people to make sure that we go through the constitutional processes, that we can then change those who are in authority because no person in the United States is entitled to government authority. It’s only upon consent of we the people and consent of the governed.
Mr. Jekielek: So there’s been talk that this Texas case is actually being retooled as we speak. Do you have any intel on that?
Ms. Ellis: Yes. We’re certainly looking at that. The president is looking at that and in terms of how we might be able to refile it. Of course, it’s really shocking, and I think completely outrageous, that the Supreme Court dismissed what is clearly a case of original jurisdiction, meaning that you can file directly in the Supreme Court when it was a state suing other states. And ultimately, it was 18 states against four states. That case should have been heard.
It’s not discretionary of the Supreme Court to be able to do that. And so I think that was very disappointing to a lot of Americans to see that. Of course, the Trump legal team, we’re looking at all legal options. We’ll continue to have the other cases that we’ve already filed. They’re making their way up through the system. Of course, though, ultimately, the state legislatures have the authority already to be able to reclaim their delegates, to protect their constituent base. They don’t need a court order for that.
Mr. Jekielek: Jenna, there have been reports that the DNI, Ratcliffe, that he actually intends to postpone this report on potential foreign interference in the election that’s, I think it’s due on December 18, because of new intelligence about how the Chinese Communist Party may have interfered in the election. I don’t know if you’ve read this. What are your thoughts on this?
Ms. Ellis: Well, John Radcliffe is someone who I know personally, and I have great respect for him. I haven’t talked to him, of course, about this. I don’t know any more than you do in terms of the reports coming out. But I think comparatively, with some of the other people that we’ve seen in the swamp and doing things for various reasons, I have the utmost trust and respect for DNI Ratcliffe. And I think that whatever his decision is with the information he has will be one that’s for the good of the American people.
Mr. Jekielek: Speaking of media a little bit, you’ve been, I guess I could say, extremely critical in past days of corporate media in general. I just wanted you to kind of talk about this a little bit. What are your concerns, exactly?
Ms. Ellis: Corporate media is telling a narrative. They’re not truth-seeking. They’re not fact-finding. They’re not willing to follow the election integrity path where it leads. And so just like how there may be certain partisan political operatives that have an agenda, journalism and reporting should not have an agenda. Certainly, opinion pieces, opinions are very different.
But when the mainstream media is reporting factually false information or they’re unwilling to report things like Hunter Biden’s laptop, “Let’s just not talk about that,” or “Let’s push this false narrative of Russia collusion for three and a half years.” I mean, all of these things are designed to try to minimize the legitimacy of what President Trump is doing by trying to protect election integrity. That’s irresponsible and morally outrageous for so-called journalists who are really activists to be perpetuating this sort of false narrative.
They’ve also done personal attacks against myself and my colleagues and outright lied with false narratives to try to break down our credibility just for the purpose of trying to say, “See, President Trump doesn’t have a credible legal team. He doesn’t have a credible effort here.” And they have tried for the last four plus years with President Trump to take down him and his associates because ultimately, they don’t like the fact that he is willing to stand firm and uphold the rule of law in this country.
I think that’s absolutely ridiculous. And I know for myself and the mayor and those on our team, and certainly President Trump has proved this, we’re not intimidated. We don’t care about the lies. We’ll of course call them out for lying, and we will always put forward the truth. But we will continue the fact-finding mission.
We will be genuine patriots with courage. We will protect the Constitution because at every critical moment in America’s history, we have had patriots that have stood up and said, “We are willing to carry the torch for liberty.” It’s our turn right now, and we’re up to the challenge.
Mr. Jekielek: Any final thoughts before we finish up?
Ms. Ellis: Well, I really appreciate this time so much. And I would just say to the American people: take heart. This is not over yet. And we absolutely have every intention of continuing to fight for election integrity. We need to do this through January 6, and also beyond. This is something that should never, ever happen again in America’s history. And it’s up to us to be the leaders and to stand with courage and to go forward and always seek truth.
And I would also just say merry Christmas to everyone. We’re saying that, and I’m so grateful to President Trump for all of the promises that he has kept to the American people. It’s been such a privilege and honor to be on his team and to know that we’re fighting for truth and the American way.
Mr. Jekielek: Well Jenna, merry Christmas, and such a pleasure to have you on.
Ms. Ellis: Really appreciate it. Thanks.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
