Donald Trump is facing renewed mockery after he claimed that Sidney Powell never served as his lawyer.
This led to the resurfacing of November 2020 footage showing then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani introducing Ms Powell as an attorney for Mr Trump and the Trump campaign.
On Sunday, Mr Trump took to Truth Social following Ms Powell’s guilty plea in the Georgia election subversion case, which has ensnared both Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani, to claim that she was “never” his attorney.
Ms Powell was a part of Mr Trump’s legal team in late 2020 and Mr Trump continued to speak to her about issues connected to the election after she had left.
“Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN, AND OUR COUNTRY IS BEING ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED BECAUSE OF IT!!!” Mr Trump thundered on Truth Social on Sunday.
“Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to ask the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS. In fact, she would have been conflicted,” he added.
“Ms Powell did a valiant job of representing a very unfairly treated and governmentally abused General Mike Flynn, but to no avail,” he claimed, mentioning his first national security adviser, now a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
He lasted less than a month as national security adviser, the shortest tenure in the history of the position.
“His prosecution, despite the facts, was ruthless. He was an innocent man, much like many other innocent people who are being persecuted by this now Fascist government of ours, and I was honored to give him a Full Pardon!” Mr Trump wrote.
In December 2017, Mr Flynn agreed to plead guilty to lying to the FBI.
Mr Trump’s outburst comes after Ms Powell agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors in Fulton County and to testify against others caught up in the case, meaning that she could end up testifying against the former president.
On 15 November 2020, Mr Trump wrote on what was then called Twitter that Ms Powell had been “added” to his “truly great team”.
Ms Powell took part in a now-infamous press conference alongside Mr Giuliani and then-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis. Ms Powell pushed outlandish conspiracy theories with no basis in reality that there was an international plot to flip millions of votes from Mr Trump to President Joe Biden.
Ms Powell was soon ousted from the campaign, saying that she was “practising law on her own”, filing lawsuits all over the US as she tried to have the results changed. A federal judge has called her behaviour “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process”, CNN notes.
Ms Powell met with Mr Trump on numerous occasions, including a meeting at the White House in December 2020 during which the then-president is reported to have considered making her special counsel for going after voter fraud. This meeting garnered substantial media attention after it came to light that the declaration of martial law and ordering the military to seize voting machines were discussed as possible next steps.
Ahead of Ms Powell’s trial in Georgia, she and her legal team tried to distance her from Mr Trump, with her lawyers claiming that she “did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign” because she hadn’t signed an “engagement agreement”.
As part of her guilty plea, Ms Powell admitted to breaching election systems in January 2021 in Coffee County, Georgia.
After Mr Trump claimed that Ms Powell had never been his lawyer, the left-leaning watchdog Meidas Touch shared the footage of Mr Giuliani introducing her as part of the Trump legal team.
Mr Trump and 17 others, face charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
During the infamous November 2020 press conference, Mr Giuliani said: “This is representative of our legal team. We’re representing President Trump and we’re representing the Trump campaign. When I finish, Sidney Powell and then Jenna Ellis will follow me and we will present in brief the evidence that we’ve collected over the last I guess it is two weeks.”
Mr Trump also tweeted on 14 November 2020: “I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!”
Aaron Blake of The Washington Post wrote on X: “Trump 2020: Sidney Powell has joined my legal team! Trump after Powell flipped: Sidney Powell was not on my legal team.”
California Democrat Ted Lieu wrote that “Sidney Powell & Kenneth Chesebro illegally tried to overturn the 2020 elections”.
“Trump lawyer Powell pleaded guilty to election interference. Chesebro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false documents in Trump fake electors plot. Who do you think they took instructions from?” he asked.
Actor George Takei added: “Oh, so NOW Trump says that Sidney Powell was NEVER his attorney? Funny how he called her that when she was busy spreading election lies, and when he wanted to make her SPECIAL COUNSEL to investigate non-existent election fraud.”
“But now that she’s pleaded guilty? ‘I BARELY KNEW HER!’ Hahaha! Trump better think about this, though. If she was never his attorney, then there was NEVER attorney-client privilege either,” he wrote.
