In this handout provided by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, attorney Sidney Powell poses for her booking photo on August 23, 2023, in Atlanta, Georgia. | Source: Handout / Getty
Booooy, the hits just keep on coming for Donald Trump and his band of MAGA marauders who are included in his RICO indictment for allegedly interfering with the 2020 election in Georgia.
Y’all remember Trump attorney Sidney Powell, right? Powell was basically the evil Robin to Rudy Giuliani‘s evil Batman. (Actually, it would be more accurate to say Giuliani is characteristically and aesthetically The Penguin, but I’m not sure if Oswald Cobblepot had a side-kick, and the analogy gets kind of convoluted if I make Powell the top general in his penguin army, or whatever.)
Powell was a major player in aiding Giuliani in spreading “stop the steal” propaganda involving evidence-less claims regarding voting machines being rigged to turn Trump votes into Biden votes. She was also charged with six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, which, on Thursday, she pleaded guilty to.
From USA Today:
Powell agreed to testify in future trials in exchange for serving six years of probation, a $6,000 fine and paying restitution of $2,700.
Powell is one of 19 co-defendants charged in the case, which alleged a broad racketeering conspiracy. Other portions of the conspiracy included the recruitment of fake presidential electors to vote for Trump despite President Joe Biden winning Georgia, lying about election results to state officials and in court records, and soliciting public officials to violate their oaths of office.
Legal experts said Powell’s agreement to testify against others in the case is “very significant” because she dealt at length with Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others charged in the conspiracy.
“I think it’s very significant because she is one of the people who was closest to Trump in many of these alleged nefarious activities, and as part of the agreement, she must testify truthfully against Trump as well as the other defendants,’ said John Banzhaf, a George Washington University law professor who has been following the case closely. “So it is a major victory for Fani Willis and certainly a major concern for Trump.”
Yeah, this is YUGE! Powell was one of the most prominent loud and lying voices in the campaign to help Trump in his attempt to steal an election by falsely and erroneously claiming it was stolen from him. Now, she’s pleading guilty and promising to be a snitch. It’s worth pointing out, though, that conspiring to undermine democracy in order to keep a would-be dictator in office should not be a misdemeanor and certainly should result in more than less than a year of probation and less than $10k in fines.
Ironically, Powell was accused of using fraudulent means to prove the voting machines provided by Dominion Voting Systems were fraudulent, which, of course, they were not.
More from USA Today:
Prosecutors charged Powell with conspiring with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there.
The indictment said an unnamed person sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.
Dominion sued Giuliani and Powell in 2021 over their campaign of lies and alleged defamation.
Powell, whose guilty plea came days before her trial was scheduled to begin Monday, is the second co-defendant to plead guilty along with bail bondsman Scott Hall. The other 17 co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty.
SEE ALSO:
Here Are All The Criminal Cases Involving Former President Donald Trump
