Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday morning in the Georgia election interference case just a day before jury selection in her trial alongside co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro was set to begin.

Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit election interference in Fulton County Superior Court as part of a deal reached with prosecutors.

Powell agreed to serve six years of probation and pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia. She also agreed to submit an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia and to testify at related court proceedings.

Powell was one of 19 defendants named in District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment, which also charged former President Donald Trump.

Powell, who acted as one of Trump’s lawyers after his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, was charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespassing and invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

She had originally pleadednot guilty and had agreed to a $100,000 bond.

Reached for comment Thursday, an attorney for Chesebro, who, like Powell, had served as a lawyer for Trump during the effort to overturn the election, said he had no immediate reaction.

“Still need to process,” said the attorney, Scott Grubman.

Trump and the other co-defendants will be tried later.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Fulton County case, suggested in a statement that any testimony Powell would provide would help Trump’s defense.

“Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy,” Sadow said.

Powell was among the Trump allies who had pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. At a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump discussed the idea of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud.

Another defendant in the sprawling case, Scott Hall, pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges in late September as part of a deal with Fulton County prosecutors. Hall, a bail bondsman, was hit with charges relating to a voting system breach in Georgia’s Coffee County in early 2021. His plea agreement said he would be sentenced to five years of probation and must testify at hearings and trials in the broader case.