Trump election lawyer Sidney Powell is longtime QAnon supporter – Business Insider
- Sidney Powell, an attorney on the Trump campaign legal team seeking to subvert the presidential election result, has a history of spreading conspiracy theories.
- At a wild press conference Thursday, she alleged a vast plot involving the Venezuelan government and financier George Soros to steal the election from Trump.
- She has rejected requests for evidence to back her claims.
- While representing Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security director, she alleged, groundlessly, that he was being persecuted by “deep state” officials.
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Sidney Powell, a Trump campaign attorney, shot to prominence on Thursday, alleging at a press conference that a vast conspiracy was working to steal the election from President Donald Trump.
Powell claimed that the socialist Venezuelan government and financier George Soros were part of the effort, but has rejected requests for any proof to substantiate her claim.
The fondness for conspiracy aligns with Powell’s previous work as a lawyer for Michael Flynn, and a public supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 19, 2020
Flynn was Trump’s first national security advisor and was investigated as part of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
Politico in a 2019 profile reported that during her career she switched from prosecuting federal cases to campaigning against prosecutorial overreach.
“It was when her cause came to align with Trump’s and Flynn’s plight as targets of Mueller’s probe that she worked her way into a deep state-hating, MAGA-loving network that landed her a high-profile client.”
Powell is a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy, the movement that is embraced by a large swath of Trump supporters and even some GOP lawmakers, which groundlessly alleging that a Satanic cabal of child abusing Democrats and Hollywood stars secretly manipulates world events.
Flynn is one of the heroes of the QAnon movement, and has used QAnon slogans and hashtags in an apparent signal of allegiance.
Powell has likewise long shared QAnon slogans on social media, making her one of the first high-profile Trump supporters to back the movement.
—Alex Kaplan (@AlKapDC) June 12, 2019
While representing Flynn, Powell pushed the conspiracy, in op-eds and Fox News interviews, that the Mueller probe was a plot by “deep state” officials to unseat Trump.
Alex Kaplan, a researcher in disinformation at the progressive non-profit Media Matters, noted that in November 2019 Powell was interviewed on a popular QAnon YouTube channel.
—Alex Kaplan (@AlKapDC) November 20, 2019
Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to federal officials. Mueller recommended that he serve no prison time in recognition of his cooperation with investigators.
After appointing Powell as his counsel, Flynn attempted to withdraw his guilty plea. His case was ultimately dropped by the Department of Justice in May, prompting accusations of cronyism against Attorney General Bill Barr and calls for his resignation by more than 1,000 former DoJ officials.
The playbook Powell deployed for Flynn she is again using to stir suspicion of the election result which the Trump campaign is pushing to overhaul, in a bid experts think has little chance of success.
As well her the claims on Thursday, Powell has claimed that the Dominion election machines used in US elections were designed specifically to rig election races in Latin America, a claim rebutted by fact-checking site PolitiFact.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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