Donald Trump Allies' Plea Deal Documents to Be Revealed

The co-defendants who reached plea deals in Donald Trump's Georgia election subversion case will see those deals published, a judge has ordered.

Four of the former president's 18 co-defendants involved in the indictment have pleaded guilty on various charges around trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the case.

Now, those four co-defendants—Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesbero, Scott Hall and Sidney Powell—will see their deals unsealed and made public, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled.

Ellis, one of Trump's former lawyers, is accused of drafting a letter to top state officials declaring the state's election results in 2020 illegitimate. She last week pleaded guilty to one felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings and agreed to the prosecutor's recommendations that she face five years of probation, pay a $5,00 fine in restitution, and perform 100 hours of community service.

A week before her deal, Chesebero, another former Trump lawyer, pleaded guilty in the case. Accused of helping devise a plan to submit a fake slate of electors for Trump, he pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents. He had faced a total of seven charges in the case and now faces five years of probation, a $5,000 fine, and community service.

Powell, also a former Trump lawyer, admitted six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit election interference in a court hearing in Atlanta. She was sentenced to six years probation and agreed to pay a $6,000 fine and restitution of $2,700.

And the fourth co-defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, struck a plea deal with prosecutors in late September. He was accused of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines at the Coffee County election office on January 7, 2021.

Judge McAfee said that although prosecutors with the Fulton County District Attorney's Office "did not oppose the requests" to seal, and although the judge orally granted the requests at the change of plea hearings, the sealing statute demanded more analysis from the jurist on the balance between "public's interest" in accessing the records and the defendants' "privacy" concerns.

"The Court did not, until now, issue any written findings of fact, nor specifically address the public interest," McAfee said. "While all parties have maintained their position that the records be sealed, none have particularized how sealing would satisfy this balancing requirement."

The judge added that the "exact conditions and circumstances of each plea have been widely covered by the media" and that the coverage is likely to exist online "in perpetuity."

"On the other hand," McAfee continued, "it is hard to conceive of a subject matter more pertinent to the public interest than a criminal case addressing the circumstances of a presidential election."

He said the co-defendant can "renew their sealing request" upon the "successful completion and discharge of their sentences."

The Georgia case is one of Trump's four criminal cases and one of two specifically surrounding his actions around the 2020 election.

Newsweek has reached out to representatives for Ellis, Hall, Chesbero and Powell by email for comment on this story.