Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty in Election Subversion Case – Former Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who faced charges in connection with an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, has entered a guilty plea as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, just days before her trial was set to begin.
This surprising development is a significant victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, as it opens the door to Powell’s potential testimony on some of the most audacious efforts to reverse the election results that occurred during the Trump presidency.
Powell has pled guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit interference with election duties. As part of her sentence, she has been placed on six years’ probation, fined $6,000, ordered to pay $2,700 in restitution to the state, and is required to provide documents and testify truthfully in the trials of her co-defendants.
This plea deal officially marks Powell as the second defendant in the extensive 2020 election subversion case brought by Fulton County prosecutors to plead guilty, following local Republican bail bondsman Scott Hall.
Initially charged with racketeering and computer trespass crimes related to attempts to allow Republican election deniers unlawful access to voting machines in Coffee County, Powell found herself in a precarious position when Hall decided to cooperate with authorities, potentially providing incriminating evidence against her.
The most far-reaching consequence of Powell’s plea deal may be her agreement to testify in future trials. Powell was in close proximity to Donald Trump during the final weeks of his presidency and was deeply involved in various schemes to reverse Trump’s election defeat.
One notable episode was Powell’s central role in a contentious December 2020 meeting at the White House. During this meeting, Trump designated Powell as a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud after she proposed a plan that involved suspending normal laws and employing military force to seize voting machines.
Legal experts told The Guardian that Powell’s cooperation is a pivotal moment in the case, as her potential testimony against Rudy Giuliani, another former Trump lawyer who has been charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, could compel Giuliani to seek a similar deal to testify against individuals like Trump himself.
Powell was also implicated in the Coffee County conspiracy, which saw Trump allies hiring a team of forensics experts to gain access to voting machines, making exact copies of virtually every part of the election systems, and uploading the data online. A day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, surveillance footage captured experts from SullivanStrickler, a firm specializing in electronic device imaging, arriving at the Coffee County election office.
While surveillance footage only partially captures what transpired inside the election office, records indicate that the SullivanStrickler team imaged nearly every component of the election systems, including ballot scanners, the vote-counting server, thumb drives, and flash memory cards.
Powell’s involvement in the data breach revolves around allegations of organizing it, despite her claims that her non-profit company funded the forensics experts and that she had received prior authorization from local officials.
Sidney Powell’s guilty plea not only advances the ongoing investigation into the 2020 election subversion but also raises the stakes for others implicated in the case, with the potential for more revelations and cooperation agreements in the future. The trial continues to be a focal point of political and legal interest, with ramifications that could extend to the highest levels of the Trump administration.
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education.
