On CNN Tuesday, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara tore into pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell for her legal defense that her lies about voter fraud were not meant to be taken seriously.
"I remember the press conference she did with Rudy, and she was speaking up there," said anchor Pamela Brown. "It almost seemed like she was in tears talking about this, and to see this response now that she's faced with a billion-dollar lawsuit — is she essentially arguing former President Trump, who continues to promote election fraud lies, is not a reasonable person? Because as we know, he bought into this."
"That's one interpretation," said Bharara. "The argument her lawyers are making in court to defend her against this defamation suit. Well, no reasonable person would have believed this. But as I said a moment ago, she was intending for many, many, many people to believe it. And other people can characterize Donald Trump as being a reasonable person or not, and for that matter, tens of millions of his supporters as being reasonable or not. They believed it. They wanted to believe it and they ate it up."
"Part of her strategy was to make legal arguments in court," continued Bharara. "We now know how those turned out. They all failed in every respect. They were nonsensical suits. The second strategy was to put on this narrative and convince the American public to believe that the election was rigged, and one of the ways in which it was rigged was that this company, Dominion, was blatantly changing votes at the push of a button from Trump to Biden. What it says about the reasonableness of those people others can decide, but she meant for people to believe it."
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