GA prosecutors seek emergency protective order in Trump case after confidential interviews released

By6abc Digital Staff WPVI logo
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Emergency order sought in Trump GA case
Prosecutors are seeking an emergency protective order in the case of former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia.

There is another legal twist in the indictment of former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia.

New videos reveal what Trump's former attorneys told prosecutors about the 2020 election after agreeing to cooperate last month.

Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty to reduced charges and agreed to cooperate. ABC News has obtained portions of video recordings of their confidential interviews with prosecutors.

Now, prosecutors there are seeking an emergency protective order in response to news organizations obtaining the confidential interviews of four of the defendants.

WATCH: New videos revealed of Trump lawyers talking to prosecutors

New videos reveal what Trump's former attorneys told prosecutors about the 2020 election after agreeing to cooperate last month.

"He always wanted to know where things were in terms of finding fraud that would change the results of the election," Powell said in the video.

Aides were telling him he lost but Powell said Trump was so determined to stay in office he weighed a plan to seize voting machines in multiple states.

Ellis told prosecutors she was at the 2020 White House Christmas party when Trump aide, Dan Scavino, told her Trump simply planned to refuse to leave office.

RELATED: Read the new Trump indictment, key takeaways

"He said to me, in a kind of excited tone, 'Well we don't care and we're not gonna leave,'" Ellis recalled.

Ellis said she asked him what he meant.

"He said, 'The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances, we are just going to stay in power." And I said to him, 'Well, doesn't quite work that way, you realize,' and he said, 'We don't care,'" according to Ellis.

"It's not a direct quote from Donald Trump, where Donald Trump is saying that he's going to remain in power no matter what. But it lends credibility to other testimony that we've heard from other witnesses that he was going to stay in power no matter what," said former Georgia prosecutor, Chris Timmons.

Prosecutors said they only gave the videos to defendants as part of the discovery process.

The state claimed the release by someone else was "clearly intended to intimidate witnesses in this case, subjecting them to harassment and threats prior to trial."

Scavino did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment. An attorney for Trump called the "purported conversation" "meaningless" since Trump ultimately did leave the White House. Trump has also denied any wrongdoing.

ABC News contributed to this report.