Global InformationSidney Powell information
Sidney Powell | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 1, 1955[1] Durham, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Education | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (BA, JD) |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Criminal charges | Felonies:
|
| Criminal penalty |
|
| Criminal status | Pleaded guilty to misdemeanors: 6 counts: conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties |
| Website | sidneypowell |
Sidney Katherine Powell (born May 1, 1955)[3][1] is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and conspiracy theorist who attempted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. In August 2023, she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia, arising from the attempt by the former president and his allies to subvert the election outcome in Georgia and other key states lost by Trump.[4][5] In October 2023, as part of an agreement with Georgia prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.[6][7][8]
Powell began her career as an assistant United States attorney in the Western District of Texas. During her tenure, she prosecuted Jimmy Chagra, who was implicated in the May 1979 assassination of United States district judge John H. Wood Jr.[9]
In 2003 she represented James Brown, a Merrill Lynch executive involved in the Enron scandal; a decade later she wrote Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice to denounce the judicial corruption she perceived in Brown's trial.[10]
In 2019, Powell defended retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn in United States v. Flynn.[11] She claimed that Flynn was framed by a covert "deep state" operation,[11][12] and has promoted personalities and slogans associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory.
In 2020, Powell joined the legal team of then-President Trump in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. She alleged that a secret international cabal involving communists, "globalists", George Soros, Hugo Chávez (who died in 2013), the Clinton Foundation, the CIA, and thousands of Democratic and Republican officials—including then-Trump ally and Georgia governor Brian Kemp—used voting machines to transfer millions of votes away from Trump in the 2020 presidential election.[13][14][15] Powell continued filing election lawsuits independently in district courts, and ultimately lost four federal lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. After several interviews in which Powell spread election fraud lies, Trump's legal team distanced itself from her, though she continued to meet with the president in the White House.[16][17][18][19] After she accused the election technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic of engaging in a conspiracy to rig the election, both companies sued her for defamation.[20][21][22][23]
In August 2021, Michigan federal judge Linda Vivienne Parker formally sanctioned Texas conspiracy theorist L. Lin Wood, Powell, and seven other pro-Trump lawyers for their suit seeking to overturn Trump's election loss. She determined the nine attorneys had participated in "a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process ... by filing baseless and frivolous lawsuits in order to undermine public confidence in the democratic process".[24] The judge ordered them to pay the state of Michigan and the City of Detroit for their expenses in defending against the lawsuit.[25] The court also referred Powell and the other lawyers to state disciplinary authorities for possible disbarment for ethics violations.[26][27] The State Bar of Texas' Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline brought a disciplinary action against Powell, alleging that she violated the rules of professional conduct governing lawyers; that proceeding is pending.[28]
- ^ a b McBurney, Robert C. I. (August 22, 2022). "Certificate of material witness pursuant to uniform act to secure the attendance of witnesses from without the state, codified in the state of Georgia as O.C.G.A. §24-13-90 et. seq." – via Clerk of Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia.
- ^ File:Donald Trump Indictment in Georgia.pdf
- ^ "Powell, Sidney K." Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
powell pled guiltywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cole, Devan; Murray, Sara; Morris, Jason; Cohen, Marshall (August 14, 2023). "Here are the names and titles of all 19 people charged in Georgia case". CNN. Retrieved August 14, 2023.
- ^ Durkee, Alison. "Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty In Georgia Election Case". Forbes.
- ^ "Trump's ex-lawyer Sidney Powell pleads guilty in Georgia election case". The Guardian. October 19, 2023.
- ^ "Sidney Powell pleads guilty in case over efforts to overturn Trump's Georgia loss and gets probation". AP News. October 19, 2023. Retrieved October 19, 2023.
- ^ Thompson, Elizabeth (November 23, 2020). "5 things to know about Sidney Powell, the Dallas lawyer formerly on Trump's legal team". Dallas News.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:6was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
magawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Michael Flynn hires Dallas lawyer Sidney Powell, a conspiracy theorist who calls Mueller a 'creep'". Dallas News. June 12, 2019. Archived from the original on November 17, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Walsh, Joe (November 20, 2020). "Who Is Sidney Powell? Meet Trump's New Top Conspiracy Theorist". Forbes. Archived from the original on November 21, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
- ^ Bump, Philip. "Here's how seriously you should take the Trump legal team's conspiracy theories". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Qiu, Linda (November 19, 2020). "How Sidney Powell inaccurately cited Venezuela's elections as evidence of U.S. fraud". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 19, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Wolfe, Jan (November 22, 2020). "Trump campaign says Sidney Powell not a member of legal team". Reuters.
- ^ Bowden, John (November 22, 2020). "Giuliani distances Trump campaign from attorney Sidney Powell". The Hill. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ^ Kevin Liptak and Pamela Brown. "Heated Oval Office meeting included talk of special counsel, martial law as Trump advisers clash". CNN.
- ^ Maggie Haberman [@maggieNYT] (December 21, 2020). "Four people briefed on events said Sidney Powell was back at the White House again today, for third time in four days" (Tweet). Archived from the original on April 25, 2021. Retrieved June 2, 2021 – via Twitter.
- ^ Feuer, Alan (January 8, 2021). "Dominion Voting Systems files defamation lawsuit against pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
- ^ Vella, Lauren (November 19, 2020). "Ernst: Trump lawyer claim that candidates pay to rig elections 'absolutely outrageous'". The Hill. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
- ^ Naham, Matt (December 17, 2020). "Days After Smartmatic's Legal Threat, Dominion Voting Systems Follows Suit with Demand Letter to Sidney Powell". Law & Crime. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:12was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.350905/gov.uscourts.mied.350905.172.0_10.pdf
- ^ Feuer, Alan (August 25, 2021). "Judge Orders Sanctions Against Pro-Trump Lawyers Over Election Lawsuit". The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
- ^ Jan Wolfe, 'Profound abuse': Judge disciplines pro-Trump lawyers over election lawsuit, Reuters (August 25, 2021).
- ^ Alan Feuer, Judge Orders Sanctions Against Pro-Trump Lawyers Over Election Lawsuit, New York Times (August 25, 2021).
- ^ Torralva, Krista M. (June 22, 2022). "Case to rebuke Sidney Powell for pushing Donald Trump's election narrative to continue". Dallasnews.com. Retrieved June 24, 2022.