Jenna Ellis and Michael Cohen: What happens when Trump's co-conspirators become his victims

When a senior member of Donald Trump's coup conspiracy, Jenna Ellis, was arrested in Georgia in August, she did better than most of her 18 co-defendants in serving "you can't touch me" face to the mug shot photographer. Ellis, who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani, had been pretending for years to be a "constitutional law" attorney, even though she had actually been an assistant district attorney prosecuting traffic tickets for a mere six months in Colorado before being fired. With her fake "expertise," Ellis had been at the forefront of efforts to pressure conservative judges and election officials to steal the 2020 election for Trump. Her 2023 mugshot suggested she was still confident she could bullshit her way through anything.

Boy, what a difference two months makes! On Tuesday, Ellis became the third Trump lawyer to plead guilty for her role in the illegal scheme to steal the 2020 election. As she read her statement in court, gone was the cocksure grin, replaced by sobbing.

"I look back on this experience with deep remorse," Ellis said through tears, though she mostly evaded responsibility by saying, "I relied on others, including lawyers with many more years of experience."

For her self-pitying act, Ellis drew widespread disdain for her "crocodile tears" and "barefaced lies that could give a coyote gastric distress." Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who pled guilty in the days before Ellis took her deal, did not read similar statements and did not draw similar ire.

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As Ellis was in an Atlanta court on Tuesday, another former Trump lawyer and co-conspirator Michael Cohen was taking the stand in Manhattan in an entirely separate case involving Trump's lifetime of financial fraud. Cohen and Ellis are remarkably similar characters. Both were mediocre-at-best lawyers who glommed onto Trump because he was their only real opportunity to make something more of themselves. Both understood that they were being hired not for their legal acumen, but their willingness to cheat and break the law on Trump's behalf. And both foolishly thought Trump would protect them, only to be thrown hastily under the bus by their former boss with the cops' first knock at the door.

Trump is a lifelong con artist and this is how grifters manipulate their victims, by preying on their less-than-honorable traits. They target people's greed or ambition, peddling get-rich-quick schemes or glittery promises of effort-free power and fame. They make the mark feel like they are in on the con, that if you stick with the charlatan, you'll be cheating the system together.

In both Cohen and Ellis' stories, it's easy to see how they got sucked into the drama of committing crime. Engaging in a criminal conspiracy is certainly more exciting than the paperwork-oriented life of an ethical lawyer. It was probably a rush, getting away with all the crimes — until, of course, they stopped getting away with it.

The public reaction to Ellis and Cohen is markedly different, despite their similarities. Cohen gets a lot more sympathy as a Trump victim, even as people acknowledge that, if he resisted the pull to the dark side in the first place, he wouldn't have gone to prison. Part of the reason is Cohen has put in years of work recasting himself as a Trump critic, by testifying in front of Congress and making himself a regular face on MSNBC. His total rejection of the GOP and his repeated, mostly ignored, warnings to Republicans have reinforced the sense that he really did learn his lesson. Ellis, on the other hand, fits neatly within the paradigm of the self-pitying "Karen," a figure who gets no sympathy, especially when she made the bed she's sleeping in.

In both cases, however, it is worth pondering some shared moral complexities.

The same self-centeredness that led both Cohen and Ellis into Trump's orbit is what is fueling the turning of their coats. Neither of them had some road-to-Damascus moment that turned the sinner into a saint. Mostly, they both seem bitter and upset at Trump for betraying them. They both seem to be feeling that itch for revenge. Moreover, it doesn't really matter why they're flipping on the boss, just so long as they see this through to the end.

Ellis' self-pity might be more grating than Cohen's, but she isn't wrong to be furious with Trump and Rudy Giuliani and whoever other conspirators are now in her burn book. I doubt she believed the Big Lie to begin with, but, like Cohen, she clearly did believe the smaller, equally dumb lie that Trump would have her back if things went sideways. Again, the easiest marks are the ones who don't realize they're being set up as a patsy.

To make this even more emotionally complicated, there's a good chance that her sense of victimhood is going to be helpful for those who want to see Trump behind bars, where he belongs. While Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is trying this case in the relatively blue city of Atlanta, this is still Georgia. There's still a strong possibility that people who voted for Trump end up on that jury. Convincing them to drop their defensiveness about that long enough to admit that Trump is guilty is going to be hard.

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One pathway to get them there might be to offer up someone relatable, a person who trusted Trump and was betrayed by him. Powell and Chesebro aren't going to play that role, as it seems both were motivated more by a generalized enthusiasm for fascist insurrection than they were by Trump himself. Their demeanor when they pled guilty also suggests they aren't going to bring the emotional fireworks to their testimony. Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, seems to be flipping, as well, but it's a similar story. He doesn't really seem victimized by Trump, because he was always a cynical operator who never trusted his boss in the first place.

This is a long way of saying that the very people laughing at Ellis and her tears might soon be grateful for her sobbing. Her story of trust in Trump and betrayal gives Republican-voting jurors a permission structure to convict him while absolving themselves of guilt for voting for him. It might be a bit of B.S. — his voters have long known he's scum, and just don't care — but at this point, I'm good with whatever it takes to get them there.

Of course, there's a not-small chance Ellis blows up the fragile remorse she's expressed, and slides right back into the MAGA world. We've seen this time and again with Jan. 6 defendants who tell the court they are very sorry that they stormed the Capitol, only to go right back to raving about stolen elections and the glories of Trump on their social media accounts within days of being returned to society. They have invested too much of their identity into MAGA to walk away, even if they know that Trump betrayed them.

Still, there's so much value in a story like Cohen's: the person whose loyalty to Trump was rewarded with a smack in the face. It can help others with doubts walk away. The role of "victim" allows one to turn on the perpetrator, even if a person was complicit, as all these Trump stooges are. Nuance is a tough sell in our day and age, but it's more necessary than ever. People can be both victims and perpetrators. We can want justice for the latter while holding sympathy for the former. If we want the man who is ultimately responsible for all this to pay the price, embracing these uncomfortable tensions may be our only choice.