Ex-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis agrees to cooperate in Arizona ‘fake elector’ case
(PHOENIX) — Donald Trump’s former attorney Jenna Ellis has reached a cooperation agreement with officials in Arizona as part of the state’s “fake elector” case, the Arizona attorney general’s office announced Monday.
The state is dropping the charges against Ellis in exchange for her cooperation, officials said.
Ellis was facing nine felonies as part of the case.
She pleaded not guilty in Maricopa County court in June for her alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona.
As part of her cooperation deal, Ellis has agreed to provide information and materials to law enforcement officials as well as to testify “at any time and place,” according to a copy of her cooperation agreement that was released by officials.
Ellis also sat for a recorded proffer session with the attorney general’s office on June 17, according to the agreement.
“This agreement represents a significant step forward in our case,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution. Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court.”
This spring, Ellis was one of eighteen individuals indicted by Mayes’ office over their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. A number of former and current aides to Trump were among those indicted, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows.
Trump was not charged in the case.
The deal marks the second cooperation agreement for Ellis, who previously pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Georgia last year after she was indicted in Fulton County alongside Donald Trump and 17 others over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Appearing in a Georgia courtroom in October, Ellis tearfully denounced her work on behalf of Trump during the 2020 election.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump, in these post-election challenges,” Ellis told the judge in that case. “I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”
ABC News later exclusively obtained video of Ellis’ proffer session with Fulton County prosecutors.
In addition to Ellis, Georgia defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Scott Hall also took cooperation deals in that case.
(BUTLER, Pa.) — There may have been radio traffic from local police that the Secret Service didn’t have access to that could’ve proved crucial to stopping former President Donald Trump from going on stage the day of the assassination attempt, the acting director of the Secret Service said Friday.
“It was so apparent to me that in this incident, in the final 30 seconds, which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire, there was clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have,” acting Director Ronald Rowe said at a news conference. “And so, we have to do a better job of collocating, leveraging that counterpart system, and this is going to drive our operations going forward.”
Rowe said the shooting was a Secret Service failure alone.
“In no way should any state or local agency supporting us in Butler on July 13 be held responsible,” he said.
One spectator was killed and two were hurt in the assassination attempt at a July 13 election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear. The gunman was killed by snipers.
Rowe said July 13 was the first time the Secret Service’s counter snipers were deployed to a Trump rally this year. Going forward, he said the Secret Service will have counter snipers at all events with presidential candidates.
Rowe said there were two command posts: one post with the Secret Service and Pennsylvania State Police, and one post with local police. He said it was “unique” that there were two security command posts, and in the future, he will make sure everyone is in the same room.
Rowe also walked through the timeline.
On July 8, agents from the Pittsburgh field office conducted a walkthrough of the event, he said. On July 10, the Secret Service counter sniper and technical security personnel arrived in Pittsburgh and began advanced planning for their teams, he said.
On July 12, the build-out of the campaign rally site began, he said, and continued through the early morning hours of July 13.
The morning of July 13, a site briefing was conducted with Secret Service personnel and law enforcement partners supporting the event, Rowe said. Secret Service personnel took their posts and a technical security sweep of the protective site started before the site opened to event staff, vendors and the public, he said.
About 15,000 people came to the rally, Rowe said.
At 5:53 p.m., the Secret Service counter sniper team leader texted the Secret Service counter sniper teams that local police were looking for a suspicious individual who was outside of the perimeter, lurking around the AGR building, Rowe said.
“At this time, Secret Service personnel were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working on an issue of a suspicious individual,” Rowe said.
“Neither the Secret Service counter sniper teams, nor members of the former president’s security detail, had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” he said.
At 6:11 p.m., the gunman’s first shots were fired, he said. Within three seconds, Trump’s detail rushed the stage and shielded him with their own bodies, Rowe said.
He said video from that day affirmed there should’ve been better coverage.
“We should have had better protection for the protectee. We should have had better coverage on that roofline,” Rowe said.
Going forward, Rowe said, he’s directed each special agent in charge — who oversee the Secret Service’s field offices across the U.S. — to be precise and clear with state and local partners.
“We’re not going to have this assumption that, ‘Oh, we think that they have it,’ and we’re going to we’re going to work together,” he said. “We’re going to have good, hard, fierce conversations about what we’re going to do, and then we’re going to go out there, and we’re going to make all of these venues secure moving forward.”
(MEMPHIS) — A second former Memphis police officer federally charged in connection with the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols has pleaded guilty, weeks before the trial is set to begin, court filings show.
Emmitt Martin III is one of five former officers indicted last year on federal civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction offenses in connection with Nichols’ death.
After initially pleading not guilty to the charges following the indictment, Martin pleaded guilty to two of them during a change of plea hearing in federal court in Memphis Friday afternoon, online court records show.
Martin pleaded guilty to excessive force and failure to intervene, as well as conspiracy to witness tamper, according to the court records. The other two charges will be dropped at sentencing, which has been scheduled for Dec. 5, according to the online records.
The government said it will recommend a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, according to the plea agreement.
In the plea agreement, Martin admitted that, along with the other defendants, he “unlawfully assaulted” Nichols, and then attempted to “corruptly persuade” his supervisor to make “false and misleading statements” on the incident report to “cover up their use of unreasonable force on Nichols.”
ABC News has reached out to his attorney for comment.
Martin is the second former officer to plead guilty in the case ahead of the federal trial, which is scheduled to start next month.
In November 2023, Desmond Mills Jr. pleaded guilty to two of the four counts in the indictment — excessive force and failing to intervene, as well as conspiring to cover up his use of unlawful force — as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
The government said at the time that it will recommend a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, based on the terms of Mills’ plea agreement.
Nichols, 29, died on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after a violent confrontation with police following a traffic stop. The medical examiner’s official autopsy report showed he died of brain injuries from blunt force trauma.
The federal indictment alleges that Martin and Mills — along with Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith — deprived Nichols of his constitutional rights during the confrontation.
Each of the defendants, according to the indictment, was involved in beating Nichols during the Jan. 7 traffic stop and none relayed information about their assault to the Memphis police dispatcher, their supervisor or the emergency medical technicians and paramedics who were coming to the scene.
The officers allegedly spoke at the scene about how they had struck Nichols, but they also did not relay that information to first responders or their supervisors even as his condition “deteriorated and he became unresponsive,” the indictment alleges.
As part of his plea agreement, Mills admitted to “repeatedly and unjustifiably striking Nichols with a baton and to failing to intervene in other officers’ use of force against Nichols,” the Department of Justice said in a press release following his change of plea hearing.
He also admitted to not providing any medical aid to Nichols afterward, despite knowing he “had a serious medical need,” and not alerting police or EMTs that Nichols had been struck in the head and body, the DOJ stated.
He further admitted to making false statements and accounts about Nichols’ arrest and the use of force used on him to a supervisor and in a Memphis Police Department report, according to the DOJ.
The other three defendants pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. Their trial is scheduled to start on Sept. 9 and is expected to last three weeks.
If convicted, two of the counts in the indictment carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the other two each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the DOJ.
All five former officers also face state felony charges, including second-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping, in connection with Nichols’ death. They pleaded not guilty.
The Memphis Police Department fired the five officers — who were on the department’s now-disbanded SCORPION unit — following an investigation into Nichols’ death.
(NEW YORK) — Longtime Defense Department researcher Luis “Lue” Elizondo has become well-known for reporting the existence of UFOs (unidentified flying objects), now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
In his new book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” which is available now, former Pentagon insider Elizondo invites the reader into this hidden world.
He joined ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos to discuss why he decided to write the book, government secrecy around UAPs, official comments on these phenomena and some of his own unusual experiences.
ABC NEWS: Unidentified flying objects have fueled decades of speculation and conspiracy theories. In his new book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” longtime Defense Department researcher Lue Elizondo, the former head of the Pentagon program responsible for the investigation of UFOs, now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, reveals long hidden truths with profound implications for not only national security, but our understanding of the universe.
Joining us now is Lue Elizondo. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. So “Imminent” tells the story of your courageous fight to make public what the government knows and doesn’t know about UAPs. What made you want to write about this?
ELIZONDO: Yeah, well, I wanted to be able to tell the American public my experiences and what the government has been doing for a very long time, not just when I was in the program, but for decades about the government’s interest in UFOs or now what we call UAP. You’re absolutely right, unidentified anomalous phenomenon. The fact is, they’re real and they are a national security issue for this country.
ABC NEWS: And it’s so interesting because many, many years ago I worked at the Pentagon for ABC, and I remember getting a tour of some of the hallways and, and somebody said “Oh, that’s where they study UFOs, UAPs. But it’s top secret.” Like that’s all they would say. So there’s this secrecy approach to all of this, right?
You write in your book, “While there are valid reasons for secrecy around some aspects of UAPs. I do not think humanity should be kept in the dark about the fundamental fact that we are not the only intelligent life in the universe.” So why do you think the United States government and other major governments have taken a secrecy approach to UAPs?
ELIZONDO: Sure. I think if we look at this, temporally speaking, the U.S. government, when we started really looking at this, was at the height of the Cold War. And you had this contentious relationship at best with then-Soviet Union.
And what we didn’t want to do was necessarily tip our hand to any information, perhaps, that we’ve gleaned from UAP or UFOs and, certainly, perhaps any information gaps or maybe information that we don’t know about the UFOs. So that’s one reason. And then I think the other reason is that governments inherently are responsible for ensuring the protection of their people, their citizens.
ABC NEWS: So Lue, for those who may be skeptical and are thinking “Nope, there’s no such thing as UFOs, it’s non-existent.” And you’re here to tell us that there is fact and research that they do exist.
ELIZONDO: Let’s not forget, Stephanie, that we’ve had already a former director of national intelligence, a former director of the CIA, and even a former president of the United States all come out on the record and say “Yeah, looks like these things are real.”
Our very best, most sophisticated technology is picking these things up. We also have eyewitness testimony from our trained observers, our combat pilots. And then you’ve also got the radar data all basically substantiating the same event at the same time, at the same place, under the same circumstances.
ABC NEWS: And so much technology that’s been analyzed and researched. Now, let’s talk about your own personal experience. You mentioned in this book that UAPs have appeared both in and around your home. How did these personal experiences influence your views on UAP and what exactly did you see?
ELIZONDO: Yeah, sure. So first of all, let me preface. We’re not sure if they are actually UAP-related. What we do know is that a lot of people that were in the program that I was in also had very similar encounters while they were in the program.
So not before or not after, but during the time that we were researching these UAP and from our experience, when I say ours, I mean my families and even our neighbors, witnessed some of these – are these luminous green balls of light. Very diffuse in nature. No hard edges. That would just seem to kind of peruse the house and go down the hall and go through a wall.
I know it sounds rather bizarre. And look, there are absolutely possible natural explanations, right? You could say ball lightning or Saint Elmo’s fire or some sort of plasma static charge in the air. But the bottom line is, it was very bizarre. It was witnessed by not only my family, but again, neighbors and other individuals who were part of our effort, and the government, also experienced, very, very similar encounters at their residences.
ABC NEWS: Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much Lue, for sharing your experience and for documenting what you know and what you think we should all know in your book, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” which is available now to purchase. Thanks Lue.