Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty in Georgia Election Case – Sidney Powell, the former lawyer of Donald Trump, who was charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia alongside the former president, has entered a guilty plea as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors shortly before her trial was set to commence.
Powell’s transformation into a cooperating witness represents a significant triumph for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, considering her substantial involvement in several of Trump’s bold efforts to reverse his election loss, which she may now provide testimony on. Powell has admitted guilt to six misdemeanor counts related to conspiracy to interfere with election duties.
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Her sentencing includes six years of probation, a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution to the state, and an obligation to provide documents and truthful testimony in her co-defendants’ trials. This plea deal solidifies Powell as the second defendant in the extensive 2020 election subversion case pursued by Fulton County prosecutors to plead guilty, with the first being local Republican bail bondsman Scott Hall.
Initially charged with racketeering and computer trespass offenses tied to efforts to enable unlawful access to voting machines for Republican election deniers in Coffee County, Powell’s predicament escalated when Hall became a potential source of incriminating evidence against her. The most significant consequence of Powell accepting the plea deal lies in her commitment to testify in forthcoming trials.
This is especially noteworthy due to her proximity to Trump during the final weeks of his presidency and her active involvement in various strategies aimed at reversing Trump’s electoral defeat. One notable instance was her central role in a contentious White House meeting in December 2020, where Trump appointed her as a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud, following her proposal to suspend normal legal procedures and employ military force to seize voting machines.
The previously disclosed meeting, as reported by The Guardian, featured Trump, his White House legal advisors, and Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump attorney also facing charges from Fulton County prosecutors for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. From a legal perspective, Powell’s cooperation represents a pivotal moment in the case, as her potential testimony against Giuliani could pressure him to reach a similar agreement to testify against individuals, possibly including Trump himself.
Powell was additionally linked to the Coffee County conspiracy, where Trump associates enlisted a team of forensics experts to gain access to voting machines and create comprehensive copies of virtually all elements of the election systems, subsequently uploading the data online. The day following the Capitol attack in Washington, surveillance footage showed data experts from SullivanStrickler, a firm specializing in electronic device “imaging” (creating exact duplicates), arriving at the Coffee County election office.
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While the surveillance video only partially captures the events inside the election office, records indicate that the SullivanStrickler team imaged nearly every component of the election systems, including ballot scanners, the vote-counting server, thumb drives, and flash memory cards. Powell’s alleged involvement centers around her role in organizing the data breach, although she had previously argued that her actions were justifiable as her non-profit organization covered the expenses of the forensics experts, and there was prior authorization from local officials.