Jack Smith has already cut down Trump's effort to distance himself from Sidney Powell

Former President Donald Trump over the weekend tried to distance himself from conspiracy-spouting attorney Sidney Powell after she pleaded guilty last week to misdemeanor charges in the Georgia election racketeering case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

While this attempt to distance himself from Powell drew howls of laughter from many cable news pundits, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin has flagged evidence cited in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Trump showing that the former president was directly involved with helping Powell craft her failed lawsuits aimed at overturning his defeat in the 2020 election.

"On November 16, 2020 on [Trump's] behalf, his executive assistant send Co-Conspirator 3 and others a document containing bullet points critical of a certain voting machine company," the indictment states, in a reference to the conspiracy theories Powell spouted about Dominion Voting Systems.

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What's more, Smith cited evidence that Trump was well aware of Powell's activities as they were occurring.

"On November 25, [Powell] filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia falsely alleging 'massive election fraud' accomplished through the voting machine company's election software and hardware," the indictment states. "Before the lawsuit was even filed [Trump] retweeted a post promoting it."