Just kidding about the guilty plea
You’d think badmouthing The Enemy after you make a plea deal would be a bad idea.
Sidney Powell may have pleaded guilty to interfering in the 2020 US presidential election, but she still seems to think President Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate.
On her social-media accounts, Powell has continued to push claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that prosecutors in Georgia who brought the criminal case against her were politically motivated. The newsletter published by her dark-money group has shared articles arguing the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, “extorted” her guilty plea.
That looks like taunting a bear, to me – a bear that’s right in front of you with no iron bars in between.
In her hearing Thursday, Powell pleaded guilty to six charges related to her scheme to tamper with election equipment and steal voter data in Coffee County.
None of those developments — nor the ongoing defamation lawsuits from the election-technology companies Dominion and Smartmatic — appear to have changed her tune.
Nyah nyah bear, your breath stinks and your mama eats tourists.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, she has shared posts purporting that the 2020 election was rigged and that law enforcement was politically biased against conservatives.
Over the weekend, Powell shared a post complaining that Trump “can’t even have attorney client privilege.” She also shared a post that said a new survey found many Democrats believed “cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 election.”
On Monday, she asked her followers to watch “Police State,” a new movie from the conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza, which argues that law enforcement is biased against Trump, who faces four pending criminal cases.
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Powell also reposted a video from Tom Fitton, who runs the right-wing watchdog organization Judicial Watch and is said to have advised Trump on his legal issues. In the video, Fitton said Trump was under attack “for daring to dispute the Biden election,” which he lost.
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The Substack newsletter for Defending the Republic, Powell’s dark-money group that she used to fund her lawsuits, has made even more inflammatory claims.
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Saturday’s newsletter quoted a Federalist article claiming “Willis basically extorted a guilty plea from Powell.” The newsletter bolded a passage arguing she couldn’t get a fair trial with “a jury culled from deep-blue Fulton County” and said the misdemeanors she pleaded guilty to “would be discharged from Powell’s record following probation.”
Powell’s followers were directed to the same Federalist article again in her Monday newsletter. It also cited an Epoch Times article quoting Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow, who said Powell pleaded guilty only because of “pressure” from Willis.
The arguments contra[di]ct Powell’s claims in her Thursday plea hearing, where she agreed her plea was “voluntary” and the charges had “a sufficient factual basis.”
See that’s why I would think people who make a plea deal would refrain from publicly taking it all back hours later. I would think that was quite risky. Saying in court that your plea is voluntary and then immediately telling the world it was coerced looks like admitting you lied in your plea deal.
Isn’t that called “lying under oath”? Could the plea deal be rescinded?
That seems plausible to me but I don’t know. I’m hoping Screechy will enlighten us.
I don’t have a lot to offer here, because Georgia criminal procedure is not really my thing, and I haven’t come across any good explainers. I haven’t even seen a link to the actual plea agreement, though I did find some of the documentation of Chesebro’s plea which is presumably similar.
My understanding is that generally when a plea agreement is contingent on cooperation and other future acts, the sentencing is deferred until the terms of the plea are completed. I would think that statement purporting to contradict the voluntary nature of the plea would be grounds for rescinding the deal (and there’s also the issue that she’s destroying her usefulness as a witness with these statements), but I’m very much speculating here. Probably better to wait for the next episode of Serious Trouble!
She can’t be stupid enough or desperate enough to be trying to worm her way back into Trump’s good books after he publicly disowned her….can she?
AoS, I don’t know if it’s necessarily as much about getting in Trump’s good graces specifically, as it is of preserving her standing in MAGA world generally. I suspect that she’s pretty much pinned her livelihood to that world — even if she manages to hold onto her law license, she’s too tainted by this whole thing to be hired by “normal” clients.
And she’s probably gotten a taste in the last couple of years of how much money you can make grifting donations from MAGA types, and doesn’t want to give that up.
American law enforcement in general is tilted in favor of conservatives: the patriarchy, religion, etc. If it is now leaning against Trump, he might give some consideration to the fact that he insulted so many people they don’t give a flying fuck about him. I don’t remember if he insulted police, but he certainly insulted enough judges and lawyers. If he didn’t insult police, that’s probably the only group in America that got off insult free!
I could see someone doing this in order to avoid being targeted by rabid Trumpistas.
Trump just got fined another $10k for violating the gag order in the NY civil fraud case.
I know, I know, what’s $10k to him, he probably fundraised that much in the last hour off of it. The nice part of this one is that the judge convened a hearing on the alleged violation, put Trump on the stand, who insisted that when he criticized the person sitting next to the judge he meant Michael Cohen and not the judge’s assistant who’s been the subject of previous attacked. The judge then ruled that Trump was not credible, issued the fine, and said it’ll be worse next time.
That’s judge-speak for “you’re full of shit.”
The ACLU, which won’t defend women who speak out against gender ideology, and (through Strangio) have called for a book to be unpublished because it disagreed with gender ideology, and [insert long list of anti-woman pro-genderism statements here], has decided to intervene on Trump’s behalf in regard to one or more of these gag orders.
POLITICO: ACLU: Trump’s gag order in federal case is unconstitutional
I don’t have an informed opinion on whether their stance makes sense, but I find it infuriating that they became so ideological rather than principled on several topics, including gender ideology, and suddenly they decide to support the principle of free speech again on behalf of the likes of Trump. Maybe they were getting dragged by their donor base over their backing away from the principles in recent years, I don’t know.
Serious Trouble was recorded on Tuesday (US), once again Ken and Josh will be ruing their timing. Still, no shortage of material for the next episode.
Sackbut, ACLU is a shadow of its former self specifically because they have diluted their message from ‘defending civil liberties for all’ to ‘defending civil liberties for most, but especially not those old GC hags in the corner.’ For what it’s worth, Ken White and a number of other lawyers with first amendment experience have been casting side-eye at the DC order saying it is unclear and doesn’t cite the best authorities on the matter.
Judges need to start fining Trump 300 million dollars for violating gag orders. Then 400 then 5 etc.
A prosecutor extorted a guilty plea from Ms. Powell? Does that ever happen to poor people?
If I were in Judge Engoron’s place, I might have held DJT in contempt then and there, while I had him in the courtroom. Break the ice. Take him into custody and order five days jail. Money sanctions don’t faze a Trump. $10,000 is penny ante for him. Take the pound of flesh.
“Cops” (ie, municipal law enforcement officers) are very much in the bag for Trump, even in Blue regions like Chicago. They’re a key part of his base, because they like his support for the “Shoot first, never really get around to the questions” attitude towards enforcing the law (see: Central Park Five). When he says “law enforcement” is biased against him, he’s speaking of the more professional arms–District Attorneys, the FBI, SEC and other fed agencies.
maddog1129, console yourself in the knowledge that if the penalty is doubled every time he does this, by the 20th time it will be up to US$2.6B and we can safely assume his empire will have been bankrupted.
Rob @ 10
The ACLU has shifted in recent years from defending civil liberties to fighting for “progressive” causes. It isn’t clear to me that they defend civil liberties for “most”, especially when those civil liberties might put them on the wrong side of a progressive fight. So it was surprising to me to see them come out with a statement favorable to Donald Trump; I thought they’d say nothing on the issue. But I agree their support for civil liberties deliberately rejects “those old GC hags in the corner”. It bothers me that their choice of unpopular character to defend on free speech grounds, in at least a nod to their origins as free speech advocates, is Donald Trump, rather than one of those “old GC hags in the corner”, who are at least speaking the truth.