Longtime Donald Trump associate Sidney Powell, an attorney who pushed election conspiracy theories that were espoused by a woman who believes she can speak with the wind, has taken a plea agreement in the Georgia election racketeering case — and part of her agreement involved admitting that the former president called her several times to check in on how her legal efforts to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election were coming along.
That's a problem, noted Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake on X, because it contradicts a defense that the former president made on his Truth Social platform attempting to throw Powell under the bus.
"Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS," Trump said at the time. "In fact, she would have been conflicted."
This was already at odds with a great deal of public evidence.
For example, on December 14, 2020, Trump posted on social media welcoming Powell, along with Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani, as "a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives" who would work on "the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS."
This at the very least implies that he had retained Powell for legal services. Moreover, prior reports indicate Trump strongly considered appointing Powell as a special counsel to investigate fraud, and Giuliani stepped in to prevent this from happening.
All of this comes as Trump is facing an ultimatum from Judge Tanya Chutkan in the federal 2020 election case to declare whether or not he is going to rely on an "advice of counsel" defense for his actions — which would potentially blame his attorneys for his actions, but also invalidate attorney-client privilege and leave his communications with his attorneys open to examination.
