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A former lawyer for Donald Trump on Thursday pleaded guilty to aiding the former US president’s efforts to overturn his election defeat in the state of Georgia, agreeing to testify against him if called.
The lawyer, Sidney Powell, pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, a misdemeanour charge. She agreed to testify against Mr Trump and the other 16 co-defendants in the case if prosecutors ask her to do it.
The Georgia case is one of four concurrent criminal cases that Mr Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is facing, and one of two specifically focused on his attempts to overturn his election defeat. Mr Trump continues to claim, without evidence, that his loss was the result of fraud.
Ms Powell’s plea came just days before she was set to go to trial beginning on Monday on charges including racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud. A lawyer for Ms Powell did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to a sweeping Fulton County, Georgia, indictment charging him with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or Rico, act in his efforts to overturn his loss to Democratic president Joe Biden.
Ms Powell admitted to plotting to unlawfully access secure election machines in rural Coffee County in southeastern Georgia in January 2021. The plea agreement calls for her to be sentenced to six years of probation.
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Ms Powell’s guilty plea is a significant victory for Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, whose team has now gained the co-operation of a lawyer closely tied to Mr Trump’s efforts to reverse his election defeat.
Ms Powell represented Mr Trump following the 2020 presidential election and helped spread his claims that the election had been marred by widespread voter fraud. She famously threatened to “release the kraken”, a mythological sea monster. Prosecutors said Ms Powell and other co-defendants tampered with electronic ballot markers and accessed data belonging to Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company that Ms Powell and other Trump allies claimed helped rig the election against Mr Trump.
Ms Powell’s attorneys contested the charges in legal motions ahead of trial, arguing that access to voting equipment in Coffee County had been authorised.
Ms Powell was scheduled to be tried alongside Kenneth Chesebro, another lawyer who assisted Mr Trump following the election. If Mr Chesebro’s trial goes ahead Mr Trump could gain a strategic advantage in preparing for his own upcoming Georgia trial since his attorneys would get a preview of much of the case against him. – Reuters
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