Trump attorney at centre of election fraud case makes plea deal
A former lawyer for Donald Trump on Thursday pleaded guilty to aiding the former US president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state of Georgia, agreeing to testify against him if called.
Sidney Powell’s plea, which saw her admit to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, came just days before she was set to go to trial, beginning on Monday.
She also agreed to testify against Mr Trump and the other co-defendants in the case if prosecutors ask her too.
Ms Powell was among a group of 19 people indicted in the Georgia case earlier this year, including Mr Trump and Rudy Giuliani, the prominent lawyer and former mayor of New York.
Mr Trump and his allies are accused of working together in a coordinated attempt to illegally alter election results in the state in 2020.
Prosecutors said Ms Powell and other co-defendants tampered with electronic ballot markers and accessed data belonging to Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company that she and other Trump allies falsely claimed helped rig the election against Mr Trump.
The lawyer will not face jail time, but she will have to serve six years of probation, write an apology letter to the people of Georgia, pay a $6,000 (£4,900) penalty and a further $2,700 directly to the state.
Ms Powell is the second person indicted in the case to take a plea deal, following Scott Graham Hall, a bail bondsman who entered his guilty plea in September .
But Ms Powell is the first member of Mr Trump’s close circle of aides to plead guilty – and to agree to testify against her former colleagues.
She represented the former president following the 2020 vote and helped spread his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread voter fraud.
‘Release the kraken’
Ms Powell famously threatened to “release the kraken”, a mythological sea monster, when talking about a lawsuit she planned to file to challenge the results of the presidential election.
Similar suits she filed in several states were promptly dismissed.
Mr Trump, for his part, has pleaded not guilty to a sweeping Fulton County, Georgia, indictment charging him with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, act in his efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden, the Democratic President.
Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York mayor Mr Giuliani and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White House’s chief of staff.
