Trump lawyer pleads guilty in 2020 election case. What about others?
| Atlanta
Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump鈥檚 loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.
Ms. Powell, who was charged alongside Mr. Trump and 17 others with violating the state鈥檚 anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.
As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000, and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.
Ms. Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.
The plea deal makes Ms. Powell the most prominent known person to be working with prosecutors investigating Mr. Trump鈥檚 efforts to overturn the election. Her cooperation in the case and participation in strategy talks threaten to expose the former president and offer insight on what he was saying and doing in the critical period after the election.
Above all, the guilty plea is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. She also has important knowledge about high-profile events, including a news conference she participated in on behalf of Mr. Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of 2020 in which prosecutors say ways to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.
John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, called Ms. Powell鈥檚 plea a 鈥渟ignificant win鈥� for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
鈥淭his is somebody who was at ground zero of these allegations and a lawyer who is pleading guilty,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is very significant.鈥�
Mr. Fishwick also said Ms. Powell鈥檚 plea is helpful to Jack Smith, the Justice Department鈥檚 special counsel.
Ms. Powell is referenced, though not by name, as one of six unindicted co-conspirators in Mr. Smith鈥檚 federal case charging Mr. Trump with plotting to overturn the election. That indictment notes how Mr. Trump had privately acknowledged to others that Ms. Powell鈥檚 unfounded claims of election fraud were 鈥渃razy,鈥� yet nonetheless he promoted and embraced a lawsuit that Ms. Powell filed against the state of Georgia that included what prosecutors said were 鈥渇ar-fetched鈥� and baseless assertions.
Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Ms. Powell, declined to comment Thursday.
Ms. Powell gained notoriety for threatening in a Fox Business interview in November 2020 to 鈥渞elease the Kraken,鈥� invoking a mythical sea monster when talking about a lawsuit she planned to file to challenge the results of the presidential election. Similar suits she filed in several states were promptly dismissed.
She was about to go on trial with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Jury selection was still set to begin Friday for Mr. Chesebro to go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal.
Jury selection was set to start Friday. Mr. Chesebro鈥檚 attorneys didn鈥檛 immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday on whether he would also accept a plea deal.
A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.
Steve Sadow, the lead attorney for Mr. Trump in the Georgia case, expressed confidence that Ms. Powell鈥檚 plea wouldn鈥檛 hurt his own client鈥檚 case.
鈥淎ssuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy,鈥� he said.
Prosecutors allege that Ms. Powell conspired with Mr. Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, in south Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there. The indictment says a person who is not named sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Ms. Powell and the Trump campaign.
Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White House鈥檚 chief of staff.
Ms. Willis has faced some criticism over her wide-ranging indictment and use of the state鈥檚 anti-racketeering law to charge so many defendants. Some people had speculated that, if her case did not go well, it could undermine Mr. Smith鈥檚 case, Mr. Fishwick said.
鈥淭his certainly shows that at least, as of today, it鈥檚 not undermining it. In fact, it鈥檚 strengthening his case,鈥� Mr. Fishwick said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.
