This morning Sidney Powell pled guilty in Fulton County Superior Court to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. She’ll avoid a trial, which was supposed to start Friday, and probably even keep her license to practice law, thanks to the inclusion of language about lack of moral turpitude associated with her crimes.
It’s quite a climb-down for the former federal prosecutor who stood next to Rudy Giuliani at that RNC lectern in 2020 and promised that she would shortly “release the Kraken” and show the world “the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States.”
Even as the Trump campaign made Rudy Giuliani the point man for its efforts to overturn the election, it swiftly distanced itself from Powell, whom they all thought was nuts — and not in the good Rudy way! Instead she spearheaded a round of pointless lawsuits seeking to overturn Biden’s win in the swing states, for which she managed only to get herself sanctioned by a federal judge in Michigan. Powell did succeed in getting herself into the Oval Office on December 18, 2020, however, with Mike Flynn and that Overstock weirdo Patrick Byrne in tow. Powell left the meeting with the understanding that she’d been appointed special counsel and deputized to seize all the voting machines and engineer a recount. But it was not meant to be, so she and her “charity” Defending the Republic made do with subsidizing the breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County Georgia by a team of forensic auditors in January of 2020.
It was that caper which formed the bases of the indictment in Georgia for violation of Georgia’s RICO act, as well as conspiracy to defraud the state and commit election fraud, computer theft, computer trespass, and computer invasion of privacy.
The Accusation presented in court today reads:
SIDNEY KATHERINE POWELL entered into contract with SullivanStrickler LLC in Fulton County, Georgia, delivered payment to SullivanStrickler LLC in Fulton County, Georgia, and caused employees of SullivanStrickler LLC to travel from Fulton County, Georgia, to Coffee County, Georgia, for the purpose of using computer with the intention of examining personal voter data with knowledge that such examination was without authority, which were overt acts to effect the object of the conspiracy;
After asserting her speedy trial rights, Powell found herself barreling toward jury selection on Friday alongside attorney Kenneth Cheseboro, a onetime Larry Tribe acolyte who supplied the intellectual heft for Trump’s legal/PR strategy to ratf*ck Biden’s electoral certification. ABC reports that in September, Cheseboro rejected a plea deal which would have forced him to plead guilty to one felony count of racketeering, so he’ll be going to trial next week.
By comparison, Powell got a pretty sweet deal. As per the prosecutor’s recommendation, the court gave her six years probation and required her to pay a $6,000 fine to the state of Georgia and $2,700 in restitution for the damaged voting machines. She’s written an apology letter to state of GA and its citizens, provided a recorded proffer, and agreed to relinquish documents over which she previously asserted privilege.
But more importantly, she agreed to testify at all hearings and trials of co-defendants, making her the second defendant to flip after Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who ran point for the campaign and who took a plea deal last month. Powell’s plea is probably bad news for her co-defendants Misty Hampton and Cathy Latham, both of whom are charged in connection with the Coffee County caper. But for Powell, who seemed downright cheerful at the hearing, avoiding the possibility of jail is likely a huge relief.
And if she can avoid a federal indictment after being labeled “Co-Conspirator 3. an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant [Donald Trump] privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy,’” she’s home free.
Calamari, anyone?
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.
