Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump campaign’s legal team, appeared on Sebastian Gorka’s “America First” podcast Monday where they talked about the failed effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory and the impeachment trial getting under way in the Senate this week. The House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Gorka described the impeachment as part of a larger project that a friend of his calls “the attempt to criminalize being a conservative.”
Ellis said that impeachment “is definitely the left trying to intimidate conservatives into silence.” She claimed that the left is going beyond labeling conservatives as racist to charging them with criminal activity.
“And basically what they're trying to do is tomorrow put every single Donald Trump supporter on trial,” Ellis said. “That's what they're doing.”
“I think we have the title for this hour,” Gorka responded. “You nailed it. It’s not about trying a man. It’s about trying to cancel 74 million people, right?”
Gorka started his segment with Ellis by talking with a caller who asked about conspiracy theories circulating in the MAGA right, including one claiming that the military is planning to put Trump back in power in March, and one asserting that the U.S. had been converted from a country into a corporation in 1871.
“Don’t read that crap,” Gorka told his caller, adding “Don’t fall for the stuff that is meant to distract you from the truth.”
Ellis joined in saying that “crazy wild conspiracy theories” had been a distraction from her post-election efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in the presidential election, what Ellis referred to as the “election integrity effort.”
During the presidential campaign, Ellis had warned that “this election really boils down to either we’re preserving America, freedom, and liberty or we’re turning to socialism.” She described “the progressive left” as a “domestically grown enemy” that is trying to destroy “ordered society” and “create chaos.” And she said Democratic governors’ “tyrannical” COVID-19-related public health restrictions were evidence of a desire to impose a “communist government” and “the complete breakdown of a legitimate society.”
Not surprisingly, Gorka and Ellis did not include Trump’s “stolen election” claims among the conspiracy theories they dismissed as “nonsense” and “garbage.” Ellis said Trump had been warning everyone about problems with mail-in ballots and “how the Democrats were systematically changing the rules trying to undermine election integrity” and “completely manipulating the system.”
And she continued to press arguments that were repeatedly rejected by courts:
I mean, it was old fashioned ballot stuffing. It was the old-fashioned way of stealing an election. And they changed the rules in advance. They ignored the Constitution. They did this by executive order in some states, which is patently unconstitutional.
Ellis said it was “discouraging” and “frustrating” that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case brought by the state of Texas.
Ellis is a fellow at Liberty University’s Falkirk Center. During the interview with Gorka, Ellis described her background as a homeschooled child, lawyer, professor, and friend of religious-right activist and attorney Michael Farris.
Ellis described her work for Trump’s campaign as part of a commitment to standing up for truth:
Because a long time ago, I prayed a prayer that I said, “Lord, like Isaiah, the prophet, here I am, send me.” And he did. And if I believe in the promise of God and His faithfulness, I have to be faithful to what he's called me to, and I will speak truth. … This isn't about red or blue. This is about truth. It's about right and wrong. And if I don't stand up for truth, then I will be disobeying my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I am first and foremost a Christian. And that's why I'm a conservative.
Gorka responded:
What other purpose is there? It’s what we believe in. It is the ultimate truth. It's the only truth, and that is why we believe what we believe. And that is why America is the greatest nation on God's earth. And that's why we never, ever give in.
