How a contract with a law firm led to Sidney Powell's plea deal in Georgia: report

The New Yorkerhas obtained nearly 400 pages in a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) report that details how Sidney Powell signed a contract obligating her to break the law.

Among the details in the piece outlining why Powell pleaded guilty is the revelation that she signed a contract with a data firm claiming that the work she was doing to obtain the necessary information for analysis was legal. Obtaining the data by breaking into the county headquarters was illegal. Taking the data was also illegal, as well as tampering with the electronic voting machines.

The report was obtained thanks to the election-related watchdog group the Coalition for Good Governance, which obtained the documents.

Powell, who pleaded guilty last week as part of a deal, will get six years of probation but no jail time. She faced up to 20 years behind bars. Trump has since claimed she never worked for him.

The Coalition for Good Governance's "computer-forensics expert confirmed that Coffee County’s elections server had been breached," said The New Yorker. "The chair of Georgia’s state-elections board at the time, a former federal judge named William Duffey, pushed, more than once, for the F.B.I. to get involved. But the agency punted, deferring to the G.B.I., despite the smaller agency’s modest resources and inability to cross state lines."

A year after the GBI began their Coffee County probe, Powell and 18 other co-defendants were named in a racketeering suit by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Among the revelations is that when Powell joined retired Gen. Michael Flynn at the property owned by Lin Wood, the Trump-supporting CEO of Cyber Ninjas, Doug Logan, met them there. Arizona later hired Cyber Ninjas to conduct their audit, but it was unknown at the time that the CEO was coordinating with those behind the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Cyber Ninjas is now defunct.

Also attending was Jim Penrose, who previously worked as an analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Wood "plantation" was described in the GBI report as “the central hub for the voter fraud information processing.” On Nov. 24, 2020, Wood tweeted: “I have worked closely with @SidneyPowell & others over recent weeks. The lawsuit Sidney will be filing tomorrow in GA speaks TRUTH.”

Now, Wood is spinning a different story, saying that he revealed all of the information to Willis as a witness in her investigation. He posted the information on his Telegram channel last week, "I was not working with them."

"Soon after the Tomotley gatherings began, Powell hired a data-services firm called SullivanStrickler," said the report. "The firm has insisted that it is 'politically agnostic,' and it has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but at least one of its top employees was an outspoken election denier."

It quoted the firm's head answering a question on the website Quora: “Why is the 2020 U.S. vote tabulation process taking multiple days?” His response began, “Quality fraud takes time.”

A judge in Clark County, Nevada, allowed the company to test voting equipment and programs after a pro-Trump lawyer brought another election lawsuit. They then went to Antrim County, Michigan where another judge said the Trump legal team could look at forensic imaging of the vote tabulators.

Despite being barred by the judge, in that case, from sharing any data, on Dec. 6, 2020, the COO, Paul Maggio, e-mailed Powell and Penrose saying that once they were paid, the Trump allies could download the data. Matthew DePerno, the lawyer who brought the suit in that case was indicted on a scheme involving voting machines taken from election offices and taken apart at motels and apartment rentals. He says he is not guilty.

It's unclear if Maggio could face anything for sharing the data despite the order by 13th Circuit Judge Kevin Elsenheimer. He's still listed as the COO on the firm's website. Maggio was also with Powell and others when they sneaked into the Coffee County offices, CNN reported.

Powell was asked to foot the bill for SullivanStrickler.

The GBI report says, SullivanStrickler “did not do any type of independent due diligence to ensure the legality of their work.” According to one company executive, “the majority of SullivanStrickler’s customers were lawyers, who are officers of the court and as such, the affirmation in the agreement indicating the proper authority for the proposed work was suitable.”

They put the burden on Powell, as the client, to make sure they were following the law.

"Had Powell done due diligence, as the contract she signed with SullivanStrickler required, she would have known that the Georgia administrative code explicitly forbids anyone but employees of the election board to enter rooms where the election-management system or election equipment is stored," said The New Yorker report.

Misty Hampton, who is among the 19 indicted co-defendants, approved an Atlanta lawyer's "open records request" asking for the absentee ballot information. The New Yorker said that set in motion SullivanStrickler's arrival.

“Huge things starting to come together! Most immediately, we were granted access -by written invitation! - to the Coffee County Systens [sic]. Yay! Putting details together now," said Trump lawyer Katherine Friessin a Signal group chat that included a SullivanStrickler team member.

The GBI report says Hampton's "approval" wasn't legitimate, saying there wasn't an official invitation “generated or agreed upon by Coffee County Officials granting outside access to their voting equipment.”

“Per Jim Penrose’s request, we are on our way to Coffee County to collect what we can from the Election/Voting machines and systems," the SullivanStrickler COO emailed Powell.

The New Yorker cited former U.S. Attorney John K. Carroll, who has handled racketeering cases in New York, saying, “If Powell wrote the check with no knowledge of the illegality of the scheme, it would be a good defense. With knowledge of the scheme, it is an incredibly damning act. . . . Even the getaway driver is guilty of robbing the bank.”

It's how Powell was left holding the bag, as it were.

Donald Trump now claims he never hired Powell.

Read the extensive report here.