October 19, 2023 09:40 AM UTC

"Kraken" Couptorney Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty

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• by: Colorado Pols

Big news out of Georgia this morning in, where one of the key early members of ex-President Donald Trump’s “elite strike force” legal team, attorney Sidney Powell, has agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges of election interference in a deal that avoids conviction for felony racketeering in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential elections. NPR:

Powell spread baseless claims of widespread election fraud after the 2020 contest that Donald Trump lost, and worked to access voting machines in Coffee County, Ga., and elsewhere to further those assertions.

She initially faced racketeering and other charges in Georgia, and her plea deal means she agrees to reduced charges.

The deal outlined Thursday has Powell pleading guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. She faces one year of probation for each of the six charges, and that she must testify truthfully against co-defendants. [Pols emphasis]

As the Washington Post reports, some of the charges Powell is pleading guilty to are related to an election system data breach very similar to the breach allegedly carried out by indicted ex-Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters:

[Powell] is the second of former president Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the sprawling racketeering case to accept a plea deal and agree to testify against her co-defendants. The other is bail bondsman Scott Hall. Both faced charges related to their involvement in a secretive effort to access and copy elections software in rural Coffee County.

Powell agreed to plead guilty to all aspects of the conspiracy that prosecutors have alleged — including paying employees of Sullivan Strickler to travel to Coffee County and copy voter data “without authority” and to “interfere with, hinder and delay” the duties of Misty Hampton, the Coffee County elections director who is also facing charges in the case.

Learning of Powell’s guilty plea this morning, we immediately checked the Twitter feed of Colorado’s own indicted co-conspirator in this case, to see if Weld County’s most famous fired traffic case lawyer Jenna Ellis was still in her usual habit of talking too much on social media about her legal troubles. And sure enough:

Set aside this random commenter retweeted by Ellis who doesn’t know how plea bargains work. What we have here is Jenna Ellis reacting favorably to her fellow “elite strike force” attorney Sidney Powell pleading guilty to multiple charges of interference with the 2020 presidential election. The same case in which Ellis faces her own felony charges. Ellis has complained loudly that Trump failed to fund her legal defense, and politically Ellis has embraced Ron DeSantis for President, further ostracizing her from MAGA World.

If you can’t predict from here what Jenna Ellis’ next move is, get out of the prediction business. Ellis has already admitted to lying repeatedly about the 2020 elections in order to keep her law license, so there’s not much left to defend in terms of either her or Trump’s reputation.

It’s no longer a question of whether Ellis cops a plea of her own, but when.