Sidney Powell cites QAnon figure Ron Watkins in GA election lawsuit – Business Insider

• Sidney Powell, a former Trump campaign attorney, cited an affidavit from QAnon figure Ron Watkins in her lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia. 
• Watkins is a former administrator on 8kun, a far-right messaging board, and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy.
• Powell has based her challenge to the election result on the baseless theory that voting machines were fixed as part of a plot to steal the election from Trump.
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Sidney Powell, a former attorney for the Trump campaign, has enlisted the testimony of a prominent and early promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory in her bid to overturn Georgia’s election result. 

Powell on Monday filed an affidavit citing Ron Watkins, a former administrator for the 8kun, an online messaging board and gathering place for conspiracy theorists which was visited by several mass shooters.

It was part of her legal challenge to the presidential election result in Georgia, which voted for President-elect Joe Biden rather than President Donald Trump.

Powell has continued to file lawsuits challenging the election results despite being publicly ditched by the Trump campaign on November 22.

She claims that election results were altered via rigged voting machines in a plot involving Venezuelan communists.

—Brad Heath (@bradheath) December 1, 2020

In the affidavit Watkins, who is not an expert in election software, does not directly allege fraud.

Instead, he states that voting machines “may enable voter fraud by unethical officials”, a situation he describes “within the realm of possibility.” 

He says in the affidavit that he lives in Japan.

Georgia’s top election officials, who are Republicans, have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence of widespread election fraud in the state.

Powell has gained notoriety for basing her challenge to the election on wild conspiracy theories, that are said to have embarrassed even Trump, who has repeatedly indulged in outlandish theories himself.

Powell has previously promoted the QAnon conspiracy on Twitter, and her decision to cite Watkins in her lawsuit shows the ties between her legal campaign and the movement. 

Watkins and his father, Jim Watkins, were administrators of 8kun (formerly known as 8chan) when a mysterious poster called “Q” started dropping messages purporting to be from a US government official exposing a vast conspiracy by child abusing Democrats to control the world. 

The posts spawned a vast online conspiracy theory movement, which has been embraced by some Republican lawmakers, despite being unsupported by any evidence.

Frederick Brennan, another former administrator on the site, has claimed that Jim and Ron Watkins themselves began the QAnon movement. The pair have denied the allegation. 

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