Trump insists attorney Sidney Powell never part of his legal team
Mugshots for former President Donald Trump (left) and his former attorney Sidney Powell (right).
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - Former President Donald Trump is now insisting that Texas attorney Sidney Powell was never part of his team, according to a new post on Truth Social.
Powell took a plea deal last week in the Georgia election interference case. Part of the deal is to testify against co-defendants in the case when required.
Powell was indicted in Fulton County in August along with Trump and 17 others, accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to keep Trump, the Republican incumbent, in the White House even though he had lost the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
The attorney was accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County. She’s alleged to have hired and paid $26,220 to an Atlanta computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler that copied data and software from the Dominion election equipment without authorization. The indictment says a person who is not named emailed a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from the Coffee County equipment to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.
She had been facing seventh counts of racketeering, computer theft, computer fraud and conspiracy to defraud the state.
Trump's post on Truth Social states "MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS."
However, a post in November 2020 on X, which was formerly known as Twitter, welcomed Powell to his legal team.
Trump mentions Powell along with Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis and calls them "a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives."
Powell also tried to distance herself from the former president before deciding to take a plea deal. In a motion filed in an attempt to have her case severed from the other co-defendants, Powell's attorneys insisted that she was not associated with the former president and had no contact with most of her purported conspirators and rarely agreed with those she knew or spoke with.
As part of the plea deal, Powell was put on 6 years of probation, ordered to pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution, write an apology letter, and testify against her co-defendants.
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.
Three of the co-defendants -- Scott Graham Hall, Powell and Kenneth Chesebro -- have now taken plea deals.