Sidney Powell has just pled guilty as part of a plea deal in the 2020 election case being brought by District Attorney Fanni Willis.
Powell is pleading guilty to six misdemeanors and has agreed to testify against co-defendants if required.
Here’s more via Politico:
Sidney Powell, who advised Trump during the final frantic weeks of his bid to remain in power despite losing the election, pleaded guilty Thursday to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties.
Powell’s guilty plea, which she entered in a court hearing in Atlanta, makes her the first member of Trump’s close advisers to admit to crimes related to the 2020 election. She had been slated to go on trial Monday in Fulton County, Ga., on charges that she joined Trump in the alleged racketeering conspiracy and helped engineer the breach of election equipment in a Georgia county.
Powell was sentenced to six years probation and will be left without a criminal record if she complies with all aspects of the agreement, Judge Scott McAfee indicated. She also must write an apology letter to Georgia citizens.
McAfee told Powell the plea deal requires her to take the witness stand against co-defendants if requested.
“You’re to testify truthfully against any and all co-defendants in this matter at any upcoming proceedings,” the judge told Powell.
Powell provided a recorded statement to prosecutors Wednesday night and agreed to turn over documents to the district attorney’s office, a prosecutor said in court.
Here’s a bit more from CNN:
Former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before her trial was set to start.
As part of her guilty plea, Powell is admitting her role in the January 2021 breach of election systems in rural Coffee County, Georgia. With the help of local GOP officials, a group of Trump supporters accessed and copied information from the county’s election systems in hopes of somehow proving that the election was rigged against Trump.
Fulton County prosecutors are recommending a sentence of six years probation. Powell will also be required to testify at future trials, write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, pay nearly $9,000 in restitution and fines and turn over documents.
Powell admitted taking actions after the 2020 election “for the purpose of willfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines” and “with the intention of taking and appropriating information, data, and software, the property of Dominion Voting Systems Corporation,” according to new court filings.
She is also admitting to hiring a data forensics firm and sending its employees to Coffee County so they could unlawfully access government computers with the purpose of “examining personal voter data, with knowledge that such examination was without authority,” according to the filings.
Her attorneys had vehemently rejected prosecutors’ claims that she orchestrated the Coffee County breach. They’ve said at pretrial hearings that prosecutors are “incorrect” and that “the evidence will show that she was not the driving force behind” the incident.
What’s interesting about all of this is that Powell wanted her trial to happen quickly. And just like that, she’s agreed to a plea deal and is admitting guilt for misdemeanor election crimes. Amazing. Now maybe we know why Giuliani dumped her like a bad habit in 2020.