'This was Trump's plot': MSNBC host says Sidney Powell plea undercuts Trump's defense

Now that former President Donald Trump's one-time legal adviser Sidney Powell has taken a plea deal in the Georgia election racketeering case, her former boss' key legal defense is in grave jeopardy, argued MSNBC anchor Ari Melber on Thursday.

"I talked before about how this is vintage Powell and Powell now," said Melber, himself an attorney by training. "This is the most cooperative she's been. We also know how she sounded when she did provide testimony, which is different, of course, than some Trump aides ... she did provide testimony in the Jan 6th House probe." He played a clip of her providing that testimony.

"He asked Pat Cipollone if he has the authority to name me special counsel, and he said yes," said Powell in the clip. "Then he asked him if he had the authority to give me whatever security clearance I needed. Cipollone said yes. Cipollone and [Eric] Herschmann and whoever the other young man was said, you can name her whatever you want to name her, and nobody's going to pay any attention to it."

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"Now, that's one lawyer describing what another lawyer said," said Melber. "Best we understand it, and what the community spoke to it they found it useful, credible. The question, is will they be forthcoming and will this be the same type of Powell when prosecutors want to pin down more details on Trump? Because remember, there's what happened and there's also why it happened. Did you do the bad thing? And why did you do the bad thing? To prove a case against, especially, a former president, where jurors may give an extra amount of deference, it's important for prosecutors to prove that why. We have heard in many cases when Trump and his lawyers when he is caught really pin down on the bad thing, whatever it may be, saying, everyone if the bad thing went down, that wasn't his criminal intent. He was just relying on the advice of counsel."

Melber then played clips of Trump's lawyer, John Lauro, saying this. "What he's being indicted for ultimately is following legal advice from an esteemed scholar, John Eastman," Lauro said in one clip. "Everything that Mr. Trump requested to be done was done with the advice of counsel, was done with lawyers giving him advice," he said in another. "You're entitled to believe and trust the advice of counsel," he said in yet another.

"That is a current Trump lawyer who has been involved in the defense in the Jack Smith case, the classified documents case, and the coup case there, so he's been poring over documents that include Powell," said Melber. "Powell is a Trump attorney. Her pleading saying she'll cooperate and that there were crimes undercuts that advice of counsel defense in the RICO case. Because she's convicted of one crime. She got out from under the others. Her testimony can bolster the prosecutor's point that this was Trump's plot, that he had criminal intent, that he, they say, was informed on all this, and went forward to do it. Not the advice of counsel defense that he was sitting around and lawyers advised him to do things. That was the way of direction. Was it his intent and a bad thing, or was it someone else's idea, and a lawyer — you do listen to lawyers up to a certain point — said to it him?"

"No one knows whether Powell will ultimately be scorched earth, or will be as tough as possible on Donald Trump," Melber added.

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