Attorney Sidney Powell has joined Scott Hall in agreeing to plead guilty in the Georgia RICO case. Should Donald Trump worry?
When former President Donald Trump was indicted in Georgia this summer along with 18 other defendants, the question among a lot of people became, will any of the codefendants agree to cooperate against Trump? After all, this was a RICO case, and that’s the sort of thing that tends to happen in that type of case.
Now, at least two of Trump’s codefendants have pled guilty- and one is a big surprise.
Last week, Scott Hall became the first of Trump’s Georgia codefendants to plead guilty and enter a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. Hall is a bail bondsman whose brother-in-law was Trump’s deputy campaign manager, and he was accused of involvement in a plot to breach voting machines.
Now, someone else has agreed to plead guilty: Sidney Powell. The prominent attorney pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts, immediately prior to her scheduled trial, in which she and another lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, were scheduled to be tried. However, Chesebro had sought to sever his trial from Powell’s.
Per The Hill, prosecutors have recommended that Powell be sentenced to six years’ probation, a $6,000 fine, and $2,700 restitution. She has agreed to “testify truthfully” in future trials, and write a letter to the state of Georgia to apologize.
The attorney had been charged with entering a conspiracy with Trump and others and a scheme to breach voting machines in one Georgia county.
Powell is an attorney who was instrumental in getting the case dropped against her client, former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. During the 2020 campaign, she pushed election conspiracy theories — which she referred to as “The Kraken” — so out there that even other Trump attorneys thought she was going too far. This included theories that Venezuela and other countries had participated in plots to keep Trump from winning, as well as the lies about Dominion Voting System, which prompted the company to sue Powell.
Powell also participated in the infamous “craziest meeting of the Trump presidency,” and Trump, Axios reported at the time, had considered naming Powell a special counsel to investigate the voting machines.
“If prosecutors compel her to testify, she could provide insight on a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of that year during which strategies and theories to influence the outcome of the election were discussed,” the Associated Press said of Powell.
It’s not clear if the plea will lead to Powell being disbarred, although disbarment proceedings have already been introduced in some jurisdictions.
An MSNBC column, after Hall’s guilty plea but prior to Powell’s, had looked at the possibility that she might “flip.”
“Hall’s deal is very good, meaning he must be giving prosecutors something very good in return. For example, he may have to testify against a co-defendant, and Powell is the most likely target — they were both charged in connection with the alleged plot to access voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, on Jan. 7, 2021,” Joyce Vance wrote. “Does Powell want to risk a sentence of five to 20 years in a Georgia state prison? Or might she decide it’s time to cut her losses and testify to what she knows about Trump?”
That is, after all, how RICO cases often work, with people at the bottom of the conspiracy approached for deals first, as prosecutors work their way up.
“Presumably in this case, Willis and her team are not counting on any such deals; with stakes this high, these prosecutors would have believed their case against Trump was already airtight when they indicted it. But jurors like to hear from witnesses with firsthand knowledge who can explain what happened and how it happened.”
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles over the years that focus on politics, technology, and the economy for over a decade. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
