Ex-Trump lawyer says DeSantis will lose if Disney sues over law revoking special status

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Jenna Ellis, a former member of former President Donald Trump’s so-called “elite strike force” that’d failed to overturn the 2020 presidential election, appears to now be trying instead to overturn Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ latest bill.

Signed into law on Friday, the bill strips Disney of its special tax status. Ellis claims Republican lawmakers had pursued the bill as retaliation for Disney’s decision to lobby against the state’s separate Parental Rights in Education bill.

Early Friday afternoon, she sent shockwaves through social media by posting a tweet offering to provide Disney with legal counsel against DeSantis’ latest bill.

“Hi @Disney. Open offer to help defend your right to constitutionally protected speech against Florida’s illegal retaliation,” she wrote.

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Speaking with Denver talk radio show host Dan Caplis later that afternoon, she explained why she’s now lobbying against a man considered to not only be America’s best governor but also America’s best chance going into the 2024 election.

“I’ve openly disagreed with Disney’s corporate statements and have openly lauded Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans for their Parental Rights in Education bill … but where they crossed the line constitutionally is that Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republicans are now retaliating against Disney for exercising their constitutionally protected rights to freedom of speech,” she said.

“And that is unconstitutional retaliation. And so imagine if this were California, that Gov. Newsom was directly targeting for retaliation a conservative company for articulating conservative views on California politics. Everyone on the right would be the first to decry that as petty tyranny. And that’s unfortunately what’s going on here. And Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans in the legislature have openly admitted and in fact, bragged about retaliation being their motive.”

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Critics pushed back on Twitter by noting that this “petty tyranny” is already occurring throughout the country thanks to Democrat lawmakers.

As an example, they pointed to all the local-level lawmakers who’ve targeted and sometimes even banned Chick-fil-A from certain places.

But, critics, continued, there is a difference. Chick-fil-A was singled out and targeted with bans because of the private donations made by its owner/founder.

Disney, on the other hand, was merely stripped of a special tax status that no other company has, and it was stripped of this not necessarily because of its politics.

Look:

And indeed, in a statement to Newsweek, DeSantis’ pushed back against Ellis’ framing, “saying that the efforts from the governor were not ‘retaliatory’ but in support of ‘a more level playing field for all businesses in Florida.'”

Ellis disagreed, telling Newsweek that the governor’s actions still remain “the height of hypocrisy and anti-free speech.”

In addition to slamming DeSantis and Florida’s Republican lawmakers, Ellis also predicted that Disney will ultimately win if it files suit against the new bill.

“This is a textbook First Amendment retaliation claim that I think Disney is likely to proceed on, and they’ll win. … This is all about the government taking an unconstitutional action because the government is obligated to protect free speech for everyone,” she told Caplis in the radio show interview.

But this argument left critics a little confused given as Disney’s now-revoked special tax status had nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Critics also wondered why Ellis hasn’t been offering her legal counsel to those who’ve been censored on social media for spreading alleged “misinformation.”

Ellis became a national figure after then-President Trump hired her in 2019 to serve as a senior legal adviser for his 2020 campaign. Following the 2020 election, she took part in an “elite strike force” effort to overturn the election results, but the effort ultimately failed.

Vivek Saxena

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