In the latest installment of news that doesn’t make me want to throw up, one of former President Trump’s legal cronies, Sidney Powell, pleaded guilty today for her role in the Georgia election conspiracy case. Powell is one of 19 total defendants, including Trump himself and Rudy Giuiani, charged with racketeering over an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election by interfering with Georgia’s results. Powell pleaded guilty to six total counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties, which are misdemeanor charges, one day before the trial was set to begin.
According to court documents filed on Thursday, Powell admitted to acting with “the purpose of willfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines” and “with the intention of taking and appropriating information, data, and software, the property of Dominion Voting Systems Corporation,” among a longer list of crimes committed relating to election tampering.
Powell, who previously, along with her lawyers, denied any wrongdoing related to the case and the election, apparently accepted a plea deal that includes six years of probation, about $9,000 in fines, an apology letter to the people of Georgia (because that won’t just be total BS, I’m sure), a promise to testify, and “any requested documents or evidence subject to any lawful privileges asserted in good faith prior to entering this plea.”
This deal is big news for all sides. To get a deal with no jail time, where she could keep her law license, and with the particular wording about testifying and sharing documents and evidence, Powell must have particularly useful testimony and/or evidence for the prosecution to use against the other defendants. And to her co-defendants, all of whom pleaded not guilty except for small fry bail bondsman Scott Hall, Powell—a high-level character within Trump’s post-election so-called “stop the steal” action—deciding to flip is bad news bears.
“… It’s so important to understand there is no such thing as halfway cooperation,” Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, said on the air of News Central on Thursday. “If you’re a prosecutor, you would not enter into this deal with Sidney Powell unless you had been thoroughly convinced that A. she is telling the truth, B. she is going to be able to testify for you credibly in the way that you can put in front of a jury, and justify and see she is not going to be splitting hairs.”
Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor, told USA Today, “Rudy Giuliani, as if he doesn’t have enough to worry about, should be very worried. Remember those press conferences the two gave on all their ‘evidence’ of election interference?”
(featured image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
