Trump campaign cuts Sidney Powell from president’s legal team

[IceWizard]

Trump campaign cuts Sidney Powell
from president’s legal team


The abrupt shake-up comes as
Sidney Powell makes far-fetched and unsupported claims of
voter fraud in the 2020 elections.




Sidney Powell speaks next to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani at a
news conference organized by the president's legal team. |
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo


By KYLE CHENEY
11/22/2020 06:45 PM EST

Updated:
11/22/2020 08:50 PM EST


President Donald Trump appears to have cut ties with
Sidney Powell, a key member of his legal team who
also represents former national security adviser
Michael Flynn in his long-running attempt to unravel
a guilty plea for lying about his 2016 contacts with Russia.

The abrupt shake-up came in a terse Sunday evening
statement from the Trump campaign that offered no
explanation for Powell’s removal.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Trump’s
personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and campaign lawyer
Jenna Ellis said in the statement. “She is not a member
of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for
the President in his personal capacity.”

Powell had made headlines in recent weeks for her
increasingly outrageous and unsupported claims of
voter fraud in the 2020 election, repeatedly vowing
to “release the kraken” of evidence, only to refuse to
produce it when asked by reporters.


Powell, in a statement, indicated she intends to keep
litigating despite her separation from the Trump team.

"I agree with the statement today. I will represent
#WeThePeople and seek the Truth," she said. "I intend
to expose all the fraud and let the chips fall where they
may. We will not allow the foundations of this great
Republic to be destroyed by abject fraud or our votes
for President Trump and other Republicans to be stolen
by foreign interests or anyone else."

Powell has accused election officials in multiple states
of committing crimes, and in recent days turned on
Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who on
Friday helped certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory
in the state. Her attack on Kemp, which also included
the threat of a “biblical” lawsuit, appeared to unsettle
some of Trump’s allies.


“Sidney Powell accusing Governor Brian Kemp of a crime
on television yet being unwilling to go on TV and defend
and lay out the evidence that she supposedly has, this is
outrageous conduct,” former Gov. Chris Christie of
New Jersey said on Sunday.

Trump announced Powell as a centerpiece of his legal
team in a recent tweet, declaring that she, Giuliani and
others would form a team that would later dub itself an
“elite strike force.”

But the team has so far failed to produce any meaningful
legal wins, and, in fact, has been repeatedly rebuffed by
federal judges who have excoriated the Trump lawyers
for demanding draconian measures — like throwing out
millions of lawful ballots — without presenting evidence
to justify it.

In recent days, Republicans aligned with the national
party began to express increasing reservations about
Powell’s rhetoric, including the claim that Trump had
“won by a landslide,” even though Biden is millions ahead
in the popular vote and won states equating to
306 electoral votes, compared with Trump’s 232.

The national GOP on Thursday posted a video clip of
Powell making the claim, and Ellis, the Trump campaign’s
attorney, celebrated Powell’s remarks at last week’s
press conference.


Mike DuHaime, the Republican National Committee’s
former political director, tweeted on Sunday that the
party must pull down its tweet endorsing Powell’s
remarks now that she’s been removed from representing
Trump or the campaign.


“This is crazy/embarrassing to promote,” he tweeted.



And Powell’s attacks on Georgia’s governor and top election
official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who are
Republicans, come as the GOP is fighting to retain control
of the Senate in two Georgia runoffs scheduled for Jan. 5.

Powell has been a fixture of the conservative media circuit
for years but became particularly prominent in the Trump
era as the firebrand attorney for Flynn.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to
the FBI, fired his legal team last year and hired Powell,
who helped lead his push to rescind his guilty plea and
lodge incendiary court filings about allegations of FBI and
Justice Department misconduct.

At a hearing on the matter in September, Powell revealed
that she had held a meeting with Trump in the previous
weeks at which she urged him not to pardon Flynn so
they could continue fighting out his case.

Powell has assailed the judge in the matter, Emmet Sullivan,
even though she once lionized him in a book for his
handling of prosecutorial misconduct in the case of former
Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.

The Biden Transition

• Joe Biden may be the new president-elect — but with President 
  
  
• Donald Trump attempting to undermine the results and Senate control 
  
  
• up still up for grabs, the story of the election is far from over.
  

BIDEN'S PLANS

• Biden to tap former Fed chief Janet Yellen as first woman to head Treasury.
  
  
• Biden announces a national security team stacked with Obama administration veterans.
  
  
• Biden will nominate Tony Blinken to helm the State Department.
  
  
• Biden builds out White House legislative affairs team.
  

TRUMP AND THE GOP

• Trump nearing last stand as efforts to challenge election slip.
  
  
• Trump campaign files narrow appeal in Pennsylvania.
  
  
• Trump tries to drum out GOP election officials who won’t play his games.
  
  
• The Michigan GOP descended on D.C. Friday, but leaders say Biden won their state.
  

COMING UP: GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFFS

• Loeffler, Perdue turn to Fox viewers to fund pricey Georgia runoffs.
  
  
• Republicans paint Raphael Warnock as a religious radical.
  
  
• Georgia’s top elections official said Sen. Lindsey Graham implicitly proposed he toss out legally mailed ballots in the state.
  
  
• Democrats pin their Senate hopes on breaking a losing streak in runoff elections.