Jenna Ellis, a Trump attorney who has loyally backed the president’s outrageous assertions about the election and has been by Rudy Giuliani’s side throughout their torturous effort to overturn Biden’s victory, is suddenly on the outs with some of Trump’s supporters because she said that the Insurrection Act does not apply to the fight over the outcome of the election.
As Right Wing Watch has reported, some Trump supporters have demanded that he invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, and deploy the military to oversee a new election. Sidney Powell, a lawyer who has been meeting with President Donald Trump nearly every day for the past few days, has echoed the call for him to declare martial law. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Trump had raised the possibility of military intervention at a White House strategy session.
On Monday night, Ellis tweeted that the Insurrection Act “does not apply” to the post-election wrangling. She was rewarded with comments calling her a bad lawyer, a shill for the left, and someone who’s only in the fight to make money and raise her profile. Some argued that this is war, and everything must be done to put Trump in office.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, Ellis urged people complaining about her giving up the Insurrection Act as a tool to “consider that President Trump himself tweeted that it’s fake news he is even considering it. He is also a constitutionalist.”
“We do not undermine the rule of law,” Ellis said.
To be clear, Ellis has not abandoned her push to overturn the will of the voters and give Trump a second term.
On Monday, Trump tweeted a link to a letter from right-wing leader, on which Right Wing Watch reported last week, that called for state legislatures to overrule voters and give Trump the election. Ellis retweeted Trump, saying, “This is the Constitution’s solution to #StopTheSteal.”
Ellis appeared on Fox News Monday night, where she talked about a meeting at the White House strategizing with right-wing members of Congress on a last-ditch strategy to challenge the outcome when Congress officially “receives” the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. A number of hard-right House members have said they will object to electors from swing states that Biden won, and several senators have said they may join.
On Fox, Ellis decried the “failure of the judicial branch” and the “failure of the state legislatures” and said that Trump and his legal team will continue to “fight by every legal and constitutionally appropriate method.” She said it was unfortunate that the Supreme Court did not agree to hear a case brought by the state of Texas, and said the justices may agree to hear the Trump campaign’s latest filing asking the Court to overturn three Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings relating to the election.
“If the Supreme Court isn’t willing to address election integrity, then they are violating their constitutional obligation” to protect the American people from “disenfranchisement,” she said.
Ellis charged that “at least six states violated their rules in the administration of the 2020 election,” adding that “if cheating and cheaters prosper, then we’ll never have free and fair elections again in this country.”
Ellis is a fellow at Liberty University’s Falkirk Center, special counsel to the religious-right legal group Thomas More Law Center—where she has represented churches challenging public-health restrictions designed to slow the spread of COVID-19—and a favorite of religious-right media personalities like Eric Metaxas and the Christian Broadcasting Networks’ David Brody, who gave her a fawning profile last week.
When evangelical author and speaker Beth Moore denounced Trumpism and Christian nationalism after the ecumenical extremism displayed at a pro-Trump rally on the National Mall, Ellis tweeted “AMEN” in affirmation of right-wing pastor Greg Locke telling Moore she had “lost her mind” and should “SIT DOWN.”
Ellis had a different take on Trump and his supporter in March 2016, when she tweeted:
I could spend a full-time job just responding to the ridiculously illogical, inconsistent, and blatantly stupid arguments supporting Trump.
But here’s the thing: his supporters DON’T CARE about facts or logic. They aren’t seeking truth. Trump probably could shoot someone in the middle of NYC and not lose support.
And this is the cumulative reason why this nation is in such terrible shape:
We don’t have truth seekers; we have narcissists.
