Texan Sidney Powell, Trump co-defendant, pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case

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Sidney Powell, the Texas lawyer who joined former President Donald Trump’s legal team after his 2020 election loss, pled guilty to several misdemeanors in a Georgia election interference case.

Appearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, she agreed to serve six years of probation, pay a $6,000 fine, pay $2,700 to the Georgia secretary of state’s office and testify truthfully at co-defendants’ trials.

Powell helped spread conspiracy theories about election fraud. Initially, Powell faced seven felony charges in the Georgia case, including racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud. The negotiated deal with prosecutors offers Powell a significantly lower sentence than she might have faced had she been found guilty of the original charges.

Powell entered the guilty plea one day before jury selection for her trial was set to begin. She was one of 19 defendants named in the indictment and is the second to accept a plea deal.

Powell is a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who, despite having no background in election law, has played a prominent role in spreading baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud. She frequently appeared on Fox News after the 2020 election to say that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged its voting machines to take away votes from Trump. Dominion, which settled a $787 million defamation lawsuit with Fox News, has filed its own defamation suit against Powell.

In Tarrant County, Texas’ most populous swing county that has been at the center of the election fraud conspiracies, Powell targeted the county’s elections administrator, Heider Garcia, accusing him on Twitter of helping Democrats win there.

Garcia, who was recently appointed elections administrator for Dallas County, said he wasn’t surprised to learn that Powell pled guilty in the Georgia case.

“We knew there was no such thing as a stolen election in 2020,” Garcia said. “Time and facts just had to take us to the truth.

The Texas State Bar’s disciplinary committee has an ongoing disciplinary case against Powell, alleging that she committed professional misconduct in contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. Powell had filed several lawsuits against agencies and officials in states where Biden won. A lower court dismissed the case, but it was appealed and is pending a decision.

Claire Reynolds, Public Affairs Counsel for the State Bar’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, said the guilty plea in the Georgia case should not affect the attorney discipline case.

Robert Holmes, Powell’s attorney in the disciplinary case, declined to comment.

Before she became a prominent voice on election conspiracy theories, Powell was a defense attorney and had represented a banker in the Enron scandal. In an interview with the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, Powell suggested the Capitol siege was orchestrated by antifa or the FBI, not Trump supporters.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.