Criminal Justice

It won't take long to read apology letters by these 2 lawyers in Georgia election-interference case

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i am sorry words on typewriter

An apology letter “doesn’t have to be some poetic melody. It doesn’t have to be pages and pages. Sometimes you just need ‘I’m sorry,’” said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Image from Shutterstock.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has obtained apology letters written by lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro as part of their plea agreements in an election-interference case in Fulton County, Georgia. It didn’t take much ink to reproduce them in full.

Each letter was only one sentence long, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. They were handwritten on lined notebook paper.

“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” wrote Powell in her Oct. 19 letter.

“I apologize to the citizens of the state of Georgia and of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” wrote Chesebro in his Oct. 20 letter.

Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. She was accused of hiring a forensic data firm to analyze data from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of conspiracy to file false documents. He was accused of writing memos supporting the use of fake electors who would declare former President Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election.

Both plea agreements called for a sentence of probation, along with fines and restitution.

A third lawyer who pleaded guilty, Jenna Ellis, read her longer apology letter aloud in court Oct. 24. She expressed deep remorse and said she failed to do her due diligence.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” Ellis said.

Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. She had been accused of pushing for fake electors and advancing a strategy to disrupt the electoral vote.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who said the contrition expressed in an apology letter “doesn’t have to be some poetic melody. It doesn’t have to be pages and pages. Sometimes you just need ‘I’m sorry.’ And if you get ‘I’m sorry,’ then we can move on and move past [it], if it’s a sincere apology.”

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