NC’s Sidney Powell may be a co-conspirator in new Trump indictment, reports say
North Carolina’s Sidney Powell may be one of six co-conspirators referred to in an indictment accusing former President Donald Trump of spreading fraudulent election claims so he could retain his power, several news outlets reported Tuesday night.
The 45-page indictment against Trump, filed Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Washington, D.C., focuses on Trump’s efforts to hold onto the presidency and the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, when a group of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the election of President Joe Biden.
None of the six co-conspirators in the indictment are named, and none of them have been indicted. It’s unclear whether they will face charges.
Powell, who became part of Trump’s legal team following the 2020 election, has been identified as the most likely to be “Co-conspirator 3,” according to CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and Politico. She is a Texas-based attorney from Raleigh who attended UNC-Chapel Hill.
In the indictment, “Co-conspirator 3” is identified as “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-conspirator 3 disinformation.”
In the indictment, the actions Co-conspirator 3 is accused of matches situations that have been reported about Powell.
During the Jan. 6 committee hearings, Trump’s communications director, Hope Hicks, testified that Trump muted himself on a call with Powell and said to those in the room with him, “This does sound crazy, doesn’t it?”
Before the end of November 2020, her election fraud theories would become so out there that The White House dismissed her from Trump’s legal team. Trump continued to meet with her, however, and one meeting in particular was called, “unhinged” by a White House staffer.
In the indictment, “Co-conspirator 3” is accused of helping lead the charge in conspiracy theories against Dominion Voting System and her hope of using her theories to get the election results in Pennsylvania and Georgia thrown out.
Following the 2020 election, Powell filed a lawsuit against the Georgia governor accusing state officials of massive election fraud using the hardware and software of the voting machines. A draft of the lawsuit prompted Dominion Voting Systems to release a statement denying her allegations.
The company later filed a defamation lawsuit against Powell and others. A secondary lawsuit was filed against Fox News for repeating the allegations. The television network settled for $787 million.
While testifying to the Jan. 6 House committee, Powell said she had not “read or reviewed all the declarations she presented as alleged evidence of election fraud,” The Washington Post reported. Her lawyers said no “reasonable person” would believe her statements to be fact, The Washington Post added.
The indictment
Tuesday marks Trump’s third criminal indictment since March, with 78 counts between the three cases. Those include falsifying business records and withholding classified documents from the federal government.
On Tuesday, a grand jury added charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of/or attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
The indictment accuses Trump of widely spreading false information about election fraud that he knew was wrong.
“These claims were false, and the defendant knew they were false,” the indictment said. “But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”
The indictment lays out step-by-step what prosecutors believe became the path from Trump’s election loss to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
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