Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis censured in Colorado over false 2020 statements

Jenna Ellis, an attorney who advised then-President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election results, was censured for misconduct Wednesday by a Colorado Supreme Court judge.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel said that Ellis violated a Colorado rule for professional conduct that prohibits “misrepresentation” by attorneys.

The office said Ellis made a series of public statements about the 2020 election that were false.

“The public censure in this matter reinforces that even if engaged in political speech, there is a line attorneys cannot cross, particularly when they are speaking in a representative capacity,” the office said in a statement.

Bryon M. Large, a presiding disciplinary judge for the state’s Supreme Court, approved the censure.

In an opinion, Large said that Ellis had “repeatedly” put forward misrepresentations on national TV and on Twitter that undermined public confidence in the 2020 presidential election.

Last month, Ellis’ lawyer had filed a stipulation agreeing to a public censure of his client and acknowledging 10 misrepresentations in the aftermath of the 2020 election, including repeatedly claiming that the election was stolen from Trump.

Ellis also acknowledged misleading comments stemming from claims she made on Fox Business about affidavits from witnesses, voter intimidation and statistics that proved a “coordinated effort” to transfer votes from Trump to Biden. According to the signed stipulation, she made similar claims on Twitter.

Fox News and the Fox Corp. are facing a $1.6 billion defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over on-air claims that the company "rigged" the 2020 election.

Ellis' stipulation also noted that while she was a member of Trump’s legal team, she was not the counsel of record for any of the lawsuits that challenged election results.

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Ellis served as Trump’s senior legal adviser from February 2019 until shortly after he left office in January 2021. Ellis was admitted to the Colorado bar in 2011.

Large said that the parties agreed that Ellis had a "selfish motive," and engaged in a "pattern of misconduct."

The parties also agreed that Ellis, "through her conduct, undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public," Large wrote.

NBC News has reached out to Ellis' lawyer, Michael W. Melito, for comment.

Ellis has been involved in a series of probes linked to the 2020 election. Last year the House Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed her to testify, and she was ordered to testify before a special grand jury in Georgia that was investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to influence the 2020 election in the state. The jury recommended indicting over a dozen people last month, but those names were not made public.

The jury foreperson told NBC News at the time: “There are certainly names that you will recognize, yes. There are names also you might not recognize.”