who powell the lawyer behind wild

What is going on with Elizabeth Powell and her lawyers?

Who is Sidney Powell? The Lawyer Behind Wild Voting Conspiracy Theories Published about a year ago A frequent guest on conservative radio and TV, she briefly became a public face of …

Who is Trump lawyer John Powell?

Feb 20, 2022 · Powell is noted for one of the wildest presentations of Trump’s rigged election claims. She and Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed at a press conference after the election that Venezuela, Cuba, Antifa, philanthropist George Soros, the Clinton Foundation and the deceased Hugo Chávez , among others, were responsible for rigging the election.

Who is Sidney Powell and why is the Trump campaign defending him?

The Trump campaign released a statement on Sunday seeking to distance itself from lawyer Sidney Powell, who has spun outlandish tales of election …

What is Sidney Powell’s Legal Defense Fund?

Jan 08, 2021 · Claire Goforth Tech Published Jan 8, 2021 Sidney Powell, one of the attorneys behind unsuccessful efforts to overturn the presidential election based on outlandish and fictitious allegations of a...

Topline

The Trump campaign released a statement on Sunday seeking to distance itself from lawyer Sidney Powell, who has spun outlandish tales of election fraud to news organizations, three days after the attorney was front and center at a press conference with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign legal advisor.

Key Facts

Powell “is not a member of the Trump Legal Team,” Giuliani said in a statement sent out by the Trump campaign Sunday, adding she is “also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”

Key Background

Though it appears possible Powell’s penchant for conspiracy theories led the Trump campaign to cut ties, the lawyer originally caught the attention of the president due to her willingness to make baseless claims about election rigging by voting machine manufacturers.

Surprising Fact

Powell is a longtime promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, frequently sharing QAnon slogans on her social media, according to Business Insider and Media Matters For America.

Crucial Quote

At the press conference with Giuliani and Ellis on Thursday, Powell falsely claimed Trump beat President-elect Joe Biden in “a landslide” in the popular vote. In fact, Biden is on track to win the popular vote by more than 6 million votes.

Tangent

After Fox News’ Tucker Carlson voiced skepticism about Powell’s wild claim that Cuba, Venezuela and other “communist” nations hacked the election and took millions of votes away from Trump, other Trump allies rallied to Powell’s defense, according to the New York Times.

Further Reading

Who Is Sidney Powell? Meet Trump’s New Top Conspiracy Theorist. (Forbes)

Is Your Firm A Technology Innovator?

We want to know how tech is — or is not — reshaping the business of law. Take a quick survey!

Can Attorneys Focus On Their Well-Being While Earning CLE? PLI Is Here To Help

We make earning CLE easy so lawyers can get back to what matters most. Find the credits you need, in the topics you care about…

Where is Sidney Powell?

Sidney Powell at the Republican National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. November 19, 2020.

Where is Dominion located?

In 2018, by which time the bulk of Dominion’s business was in the United States, it moved its headquarters to Denver, Colo. By the time of the 2020 presidential election, Dominion’s technologies were being used in 28 states and Puerto Rico.

Where is Smartmatic used in 2020?

While Smartmatic had a connection to Venezuela, Smartmatic had been used in only one U.S. election district in 2020—Los Angeles County—where the results had never been in doubt. Dominion, on the other hand, had been used in at least some districts in every swing state.

Was the 2020 election a crime?

The 2020 presidential election was “the biggest crime in American history,” attorney Sidney Powell told conservative host Sean Hannity on his syndicated radio show in mid-December. No, even that didn’t capture it. It was “the greatest crime of the century if not the life of the world,” as she told right-wing podcaster John Fredericks a week later.

What did Powell say about Flynn?

Soon after taking the Flynn case, Powell had accused the Justice Department of prosecutorial misconduct against Flynn; in a footnote to a June 2020 court brief, the department described Powell's allegations as "unfounded and provide no basis for impugning the prosecutors from the D.C. United States Attorney's Office".

What happened to Bill Allen?

The senator was subsequently convicted of seven felony counts of corruption for failing to annually declare gifts from VECO owner Bill Allen. The convictions were overturned on appeal, and Attorney General Eric Holder declined to refile the charges.

When did Dominion Voting Systems send a letter to Powell?

Dominion Voting Systems sent a letter to Powell on December 16, 2020, demanding she publicly retract her baseless allegations about the company. Shortly thereafter, the Trump legal team instructed dozens of staff members to preserve all documents relating to Dominion, Powell and others for any future litigation.

Who was the judge who was assassinated by Jimmy Chagra?

Powell was one of the prosecutors in the 1979 trial of Jimmy Chagra. He was accused in the assassination of John H. Wood Jr., a federal judge from Texas. Chagra was acquitted for involvement in the assassination but convicted on other charges. He later admitted to his role in the conspiracy to murder the judge.

Who said the government would switch votes to Biden?

Days before the 2020 presidential election, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims, asserted that a government supercomputer program would be used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines. Powell promoted the conspiracy theory on Lou Dobbs Tonight on November 6, and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo 's Fox Business program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened". She also asserted that the CIA ignored warnings about the software, and urged Trump to fire director Gina Haspel. Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), characterized the supercomputer claim as "nonsense" and a "hoax". CISA described the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history", with "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised".

What did the lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic do?

Powell filed a federal lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission on December 1, claiming that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic were used to conduct electronic ballot-stuffing and rig votes for Joe Biden. The lawsuit asked the court to decertify the state's election results or declare Donald Trump the winner of the state. The lawsuit mistakenly demanded the release of video footage from a voting center in Michigan and made erroneous references to the election in Georgia and the Georgia state legislature. U.S. district judge Pamela Pepper filed a December 2 order noting that while an "expedited" injunction was sought, the initial filings did not "indicate whether the plaintiffs are asking the court to act more quickly or why", and did not request a hearing or propose a briefing schedule. Pepper dismissed the case on December 9, writing that the "federal court has no authority or jurisdiction to grant the relief the remaining plaintiff seeks", and that the litigation on behalf of the plaintiff was "sometimes odd and often harried" and ultimately failed to establish why a federal case was appropriate. Pepper also repeatedly stated that the plaintiff did not have legal standing to bring the case and concluded that granting the relief would be unconstitutional. Powell then applied for a writ of mandamus from the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected her petition on March 1, 2021 to end the lawsuit; Powell said the court's decision "completes the implosion of each of our three branches of government into the rubble of a sinkhole of corruption".

What was the lawsuit against Fox News?

On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic filed a defamation lawsuit that accused Powell, Fox News, some hosts at Fox News, and Rudy Giuliani of engaging in a "disinformation campaign" against the company, and asked for $2.7 billion in damages.