By Aaron Miller-
Sidney Powell, former lawyer to Donald Trump and charged alongside the former president for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, has pleaded guilty.
Her guilty plea is part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, just days before her trial was scheduled to commence.
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Powell faced charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference of election duties, and agreed to to testify, in exchange for six years of probation.
There are 19 defendants in the case, most of whom have pleaded not guilty.
Sidney Powell’s decision to cooperate marks a significant victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, as she was deeply involved in some of Trump’s most audacious schemes to reverse his election defeat.
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Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit interference with election duties. As part of her sentence, she was handed six years of probation, a $6,000 fine, a restitution payment of $2,700 to the state, and is required to turn over documents and provide truthful testimony in trials involving her co-defendants.
This plea deal establishes Powell as the second defendant charged in the extensive 2020 election subversion case to plead guilty. The first was local Republican bail bondsman Scott Hall, who could potentially provide incriminating evidence against Powell.
Powell had initially faced accusations of racketeering and computer trespass related to efforts that aimed to grant unlawful access to voting machines in Coffee County, in support of Republican election deniers. Her cooperation is particularly significant because it could pave the way for her to testify in future trials.
Her proximity to Trump during the final weeks of his presidency, along with her central role in various efforts to overturn his election defeat, makes her a potential key witness.
One notable episode in which Powell played a crucial role was a contentious December 2020 meeting at the White House. During this meeting, Trump appointed Powell as a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud, after she proposed a plan that involved suspending normal laws and using military force to seize voting machines.
Legal experts suggest that Powell’s cooperation is pivotal in the case because her potential testimony against Giuliani could create pressure on him to accept a deal and testify against individuals like Trump himself.
Powell was also implicated in the Coffee County conspiracy, which involved Trump allies hiring a team of forensics experts to gain unauthorized access to voting machines, making copies of virtually every component of the election systems, and uploading the data online.
The day following the attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, surveillance footage revealed data experts from SullivanStrickler, a firm specializing in electronic device imaging, arriving at the Coffee County election office.
Although the exact events inside the elections office were only partially captured on surveillance video, records confirm that the SullivanStrickler team imaged nearly every element of the election systems, including ballot scanners, vote-counting servers, thumb drives, and flash memory cards.
Powell’s alleged involvement in organizing this data breach is a significant aspect of the case. She has argued that her actions were justified, as it was her non-profit organization that funded the forensics experts, and there was prior authorization from local officials.
The cooperation of Sidney Powell, once a staunch defender of Trump’s false claims regarding election fraud, has the potential to unravel the intricate web of election subversion efforts that took place after the 2020 election.
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