Donald Trump Raises Conflict Concerns about His Mike Flynn Pardon
The data mules for Trump’s latest tirade seem to think his claims that Sidney Powell was never his lawyer are all an attempt to deny he ever took legal advice from Powell in the wake of her plea deal in Georgia.
But the substance of his tirade is far more interesting than that.
Trump doesn’t just claim that Sidney Powell was never his attorney — a claim that conflicts with claims Trump made in real time.
He says she would have been conflicted.
Immediately after Trump claims Sidney Powell would have been conflicted (because of what? Trump doesn’t say), the former President turns to the Thanksgiving pardon he gave to confessed agent of Turkey, Mike Flynn.
Trump implies he gave Flynn a pardon because, “He was an innocent man, much like many other innocent people who are being persecuted by this now Fascist government of ours.” But as we’ve just reviewed thanks to Flynn’s stupid lawsuit against DOJ, the pardon itself did not make that claim. Only a White House press release about the pardon did.
Plus, the pardon couldn’t have been based on innocence, not entirely, anyway, because Flynn made false statements in the process of reneging off his prior guilty plea to making false statements. It is quite literally impossible for Flynn to have been innocent of making any unlawful false statements, because the things he said in the process of reneging on his plea deal completely contradicted things he had said under oath earlier. The Flynn pardon was easily the most expansive of any pardons Trump gave (perhaps save the clemency for Roger Stone found in Trump’s desk drawer, which could pardon Stone for murdering someone on Fifth Avenue for all we know). It had to be written that broadly to prevent Judge Sullivan from referring Flynn for perjury before his court. The pardon covered not just the lies Flynn told the FBI on January 24, 2017, it also covered claims Flynn made before an EDVA grand jury and in plea colloquies before Sullivan.
So here we are, just days after DOJ submitted a response to Trump’s claim of absolute immunity that argued — among other things — that a presidential pardon given as part of a quid pro quo would be unlawful, and Trump is offering up not just that Sidney Powell wasn’t his attorney in November 2020 when he claimed she was, but that she would have been conflicted — apparently because of her representation of Mike Flynn! — from being his attorney.
In real time, I addressed the possibility that Trump’s public claims about whether Sidney Powell was or was not his attorney may have been an attempt to eliminate the conflict problem with Flynn’s pardon.
I wonder whether some smart lawyer grew concerned that Sidney Powell was claiming to represent the President even while she was representing someone asking for a pardon.
On November 15, Trump explicitly named Powell as part of his team. On November [19], Powell appeared at Rudy the Dripper’s press conference. On November 22, Rudy and Jenna Ellis made a show of cutting ties with her.
Sidney Powell is practice law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.
According to Maggie Haberman, either he didn’t like her appearance and/or advisors convinced Trump to separate himself from her nutjobbery. Three days later, November 25, Trump pardoned Powell’s client. The next day, after days of promising to Bring the Kraken, Powell finally started releasing her epically batshit suits. Trump has promoted them.
Indeed, it even appears some Administration lawyers are still associated with Powell’s efforts.
I’m not sure I understand whether there would be a conflict between Powell representing Trump (for free, inevitably, as all lawyers do), making desperate efforts to overturn the election at the same time she was trying to ensure her client did no prison time. If that’s a conflict, it may still exist anyway given Powell’s admission to Judge Sullivan that she had repeatedly discussed Flynn with Trump’s campaign lawyer, Jenna Ellis. The fact that DOJ packaged up altered documents to support a Trump attack on Biden may make those ties more important anyway (or lead to more details about them becoming public).
That was the publicly available timeline (and Maggie Haberman’s public explanation) when I wrote the post on November 27, 2020, just two days after the pardon.
But Trump’s January 6 indictment adds a few details to that timeline in the single solitary paragraph addressing Powell’s overt acts, which happens to be tucked away in the section on Georgia, the state where Powell just pled guilty.
On November 16, 2020, on the Defendant’s behalf, his executive assistant sent CoConspirator 3 and others a document containing bullet points critical of a certain voting machine company, writing, “See attached – Please include as is, or almost as is, in lawsuit.” CoConspirator 3 responded nine minutes later, writing, “IT MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE in those states and machines impounded for non-partisan professional inspection.” On November 25, Co-Conspirator 3 filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia falsely alleging “massive election fraud” accomplished through the voting machine company’s election software and hardware. Before the lawsuit was even filed, the Defendant retweeted a post promoting it. The Defendant did this despite the fact that when he had discussed CoConspirator 3’s far-fetched public claims regarding the voting machine company in private with advisors, the Defendant had conceded that they were unsupported and that Co-Conspirator 3 sounded “crazy.” Co-Conspirator 3’s Georgia lawsuit was dismissed on December 7.
Here’s how the timeline looks with the details from the indictment added in:
- November 15: Trump says publicly Powell was part of his team
- November 16: Nine minutes after Trump demanded lawsuits include attacks on Dominion, Powell orders that all forthcoming lawsuits include it: “IT MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE”
- November 19: Powell appears at the Rudy the Dripper press conference, looking far less embarrassing than the President’s lawyer, which didn’t stop Maggie Haberman from claiming that Powell’s appearance was the reason Trump was cutting Powell from his legal team
- November 22: Jenna Ellis and Rudy make a big show of cutting ties with Powell
- November 25: Having ordered that all lawsuits include the Dominion attack Trump ordered, Sidney Powell then files the first lawsuit including such an attack; on the very same day, Trump pardons her client and then starts disseminating her bullshit attacks on Dominion
At least according to the indictment, it all happens on the same day: The lawsuit attacking Dominion, the pardon, Trump’s celebration of the lawsuit attacking Dominion.
The indictment focuses on Trump’s claims that Powell was crazy — and up until now I have believed that’s in there as a guaranteed way to show that Trump was pushing lies he had disavowed.
But with Trump ranting about cooperating witness Sidney Powell’s conflicts, I’m no longer so sure.
Update: Fixed date of hair dye presser, h/t critter.
In February ‘22, I commented on the post “When Lawyers Need Lawyers” here and called the pack of lawyers Trump and his campaign had used “Schrodinger’s lawyers”. I think what I said is applicable here: “ In reviewing Costello’s contradictory statements to the FBI regarding talking to Trump’s attorneys, it made me think about all the dissembling Trump, his spokespeople, and various attorneys have engaged in regarding representation of Trump. They seem to operate without direct compensation, in many cases raising money from donors as a grift. They seem to operate without representation letters. They are deemed to be counsel when required for privilege claims, deemed not to be counsel when tied to apparent criminal activity. In many ways they are Schrodinger’s lawyers.”
I think Dr. Wheeler’s identifying the problematic identification of Ms. Powell’s apparent simultaneous representation of General Flynn and the Trump campaign is a bull’s eye in the study of Trumpian quantum physics.
I hope the fission Ms. Powell’s pleading unleashes unravels multiple layers of lawyerly double dealing and grifting in the Trump universe.
That’s a good way to frame it, I think. Like a legal version of the “spooky action at a distance,” of Einstein’s coining.
As George Takei noted on mstdn, if Powell was never his attorney, there’s no A-C privilege to pierce.
Even if Powell were not Trump’s personal or a temporary lawyer for the President, she could well have been a lawyer for his campaign, or for any number of cutouts Trump creates as he pursues his wants.
Trump may also labor under the convenient but false belief that because he doesn’t pay a lawyer, he’s free to claim that a lawyer didn’t work for him. But once he disavows that an A-C relationship ever existed, he decimates any assertion of A-C privilege. But consequences have never been his thing.
His whole life seems to be a series of pushing off consequences of ill-advised acts.
Right. But the privilege is a distraction. it doesn’t relate to the function she overtly plays in the indictment.
I’m confused why the conflict sitters (I assume Flynn would blow off a Garcia hearing).
Powell was acting as external attack dog which makes Trump still legally liable for her anti-election efforts, I think.
Proof that she was legally conflicted in whatever doesn’t much change that, no?
Or is Trump somehow innocent of his coordinating influence if he somehow didn’t know Powell’s conflict?
Ugh, “matters”, not “sitters”. Damn autocorrect.
So, keeping with current practice, should we expect another Trump tweet, later today perhaps, asserting that . . .?
. . . “IF ever, in anyway possible, that Powell ever represented me in any attorney-sortish way, it was only in my role as a political campaigner running to be the BEST EVER PRESIDENT, even better for the 1st time, which it would be hard to top, and not in my role as US President, because those are two separate and distinct roles that all the Deep State prosecutors are too stupid to know is ‘1000%, BIGGLY, SEPARATE!'”
with the requisite typos, spelling errors, and grammar mistakes, of course
If she wasn’t his attorney, she seems to have been a co-conspirator. And she probably knows who attended and what was said. Its a great way to put words in someone else’s mouth, and it would not be for the purpose of proving the facts stated by the attendees. There may be a substantial reason she was granted a non felony deal.
I wonder if Powell believed for that week in November 2020 that she was acting as a lawyer for Trump, or more likely the Trump campaign. In other words, I’m speculating that someone very high up, maybe Trump himself, brought her on board via a phone call–nothing in writing.
He got rid of Toensing and DiGenova when he saw what they looked like, yet they continued to pursue threads for Rudy. I can easily imagine Trump meeting Powell and recoiling at her not being “out of central casting.”
We know he’s that shallow. We also know he’s too much a coward to fire her himself. She may have continued after 25 November under the illusion that Trump still wanted her services. And by that time, the Flynn fix seems like it was safely in. It doesn’t seem as if anyone was thinking about conflict then.
Corn & Cob
As Corn was separated from Cob,
receiving a full pardon,
Yes, siree, Bob,
Like Adam, in the garden,
When the grants were sworn,
but only one could hobnob,
I wonder if Corn
seemed to Cob, a full snob.
Without even a single gobble,
or a hint of how berserk he
could be in a squabble,
Corn ducked being cold Turkey.
In the swing of a dangling “what’ll
the mob lob next,”
Corn was the absolute model
of a plan that was fixed but hexed.
11/25/20
The pardoning of Corn & Cob will always live in my memory, forever associated with Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Bill Barr, and Bob Mueller.
Great updated timeline! Again, really well done.
No longer sure, as in leaning towards Smith’s possible crimes you wrote about in: BURIED IN DOJ’S ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY RESPONSE, A COMMENT ON TRUMP’S SUSPECTED ZENITH CRIMES… I presume. (?)
The more pressure like this, the more corrupt lawyers associated w/Trump are gon’a start surfacing belly up like dying fish, gasping for air. Call it: reverse karmic kraken.
Biggest problem I can think of wrt notion Smith may take legal action on pardons-for-favors, is Trump getting elected next year.
This post brings me back to wondering: wouldn’t Powell (and Cheseboro) ought to have negotiated resolutions for their exposure in DC before pleading to the same acts in GA?
So one would tend to assume.
The Special Counsel has not indicted any of the Co-conspirators in the DC case, So they can’t negotiate anything with Smith.
Unclear (IANAL) if Fani Willis would share evidence with Jack Smith.
He will keep us all guessing for now.
Even if uncharged, you can always talk to and bargain with the prosecution if the need is there. Happens all the time, that is how some putative defendants magically appear in court via a direct stipulated complaint instead of an indictment. And if Fulton County is so petty as to not share, Willis and her office should be lambasted and subpoenaed.
It also seems possible to me that Smith does not need to make a deal at all with these two. Certainly he won’t need cooperation from every unindicted co-conspirator to make his case, so if they want to make a deal, they’d best be calling.
They should already have been testing those waters. You could get a semi-global plea including both DOJ and GA. But other pissant local jurisdictions would not be covered, how do you make allowances for every local jurisdiction in GA, much less other states? Still, should have been talking.
this thing is hydra-headed!
much as dr wheeler’s timelines are invaluable, we civilians would benefit from a graphic of un-indicted co-conspirators, now & past attorneys, white house counsel, and etc.
wishing that someone somewhere has done this.
There is this “Coup Chart”, https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1694838351096918102/photo/1 Perhaps partly relevant to this post. Not the entire picture, but can be expanded.
Where possible please share a link to a site mirroring the dead bird app, like so:
https://nitter.net/AshaRangappa_/status/1694838351096918102/photo/1
Many readers here may not want to drive traffic to the dead bird app — including me.
But you will drive people to that stick up her ass Asha Ranghappa? Lol.
I didn’t do that, the commenter did by link Ranghappa in the first place. But if they’re going to insist that crayon artwork must be viewed, then it shouldn’t also benefit Musk and his financiers at the same time.
I don’t give a flying fuck about Musk. The musk derangement syndrome is even worse than that of Trump. Ranghappa though is mostly a hollow dope.
Funny, I do recall you saying numerous times that Musk was an asshole and that you told us that long ago. I’m not going to pull up links because you know your comments to that effect are here.
For some of us that assholishness doesn’t stop at Musk merely being a nasty personality or even a fucking white supremacist who literally encourages Nazis. He’s a direct threat to national security and I’m not crazy about community members using the comment facility here to support his efforts.
In case a reminder is needed: https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2
Trump scumbag lawyer Joe Tacopina represented the guy who killed 20 people in the 2018 Schoharie NY limousine crash because of known bad brakes.
That’s completely irrelevant to this post. But as long as you made that comment, are you saying that the defendant in that case is not entitled to a lawyer or that any lawyer that represents such a defendant is a scumbag or that because a lawyer represented Trump, that that lawyer is a scumbag.? That’s not the way our legal system is designed to work.
I think you know what I’m saying.
No, sohelpmedog is exactly right about your comment.
Tacopina might be a scumbag, but it’s not because he represents scumbags.
But we can all agree that some scumbags like to be around other scumbags and really lean into the tribe of scumbags.
Lee Kindlon represented defendant Nauman Hussain in Schoharie County. I live about 10 miles from the crash site.
I assume if it were determined in court that there was effectively a conflict for Powell simultaneously representing Flynn and Trump, that the Flynn pardon is still good, but Powell and Trump could have exposure. I certainly don’t think this would be litigated separately, but it seems possible it could come up as part of a prosecution of other crimes.
I am most interested though in whether the evidence Powell and Chesebro provide to Fani Willis could be directly shared with Jack Smith, or Dana Nessel/ other states. I know at least one commentator said their plea requires testimony in all legal proceedings related to their fact sets in GA, maybe Randall Eliason? Certainly timing would matter, whether the evidence could be shared (under seal) immediately, or only after the GA prosecution presents it.
Trump’s rant is just so off the wall
Powell’s decision to “cooperate” just made my day. Whole new chapter in the on going “shit show” of American politics. It will be interesting to see how many of the others will agree to “cooperate”.
What is amazing, is even with all this b.s. going on, the country continues to march along, doing business, economy is O.K., Biden dealing with the Israeli/Palestian war, etc.
[sorry, mistyped name on earlier attempt to post]
Not mattering so much, but “I wonder whether some smart lawyer grew concerned that Sidney” — any particular smart lawyer (relatively speaking, of course) in mind for this?
Perhaps Herschamann?
More likely Cipollone than Herschmann.
I had to do a double take reading that Trump social media post, when he said the 2020 presidential election was “STOLLEN!”
Ahem.
I know Stollen. I love Stollen. Stollen’s only connection to the 2020 presidential election is that many Germans or folks of German heritage broke some out in celebration.
He’s fairly consistent with that typo.
Obviously, he likes to use typos bc then we correct him and look pinheaded and it confirms his followers’ belief we’re assholes. But this particular one I’ve wondered whether there’s not some other logic.
I wonder if it is simply an auto-correct glitch. If you consistently misspell “stolen,” sooner or later spell check will assume your misspelling is what you intend, and switch “stolen” to “stollen” on a regular basis.
Faulty voice recognition, not then edited, perhaps?
It’s become one of the little in-jokes he has with his moron minions.
“Oh yeah, I purposely misspelled stolen. The jokes on you!”
Or maybe he’s trying to pin it on (alternate spelling of) Stalin? Hard to tell with this KooKKy Monster. He also said he’d have evidence that “the Riggers” stole the election, just as soon as his Infrastructure Week bill gets on the floor of the House I suppose.
In the normal world, if a potential client consults a lawyer about an issue, privilege attaches at that point, and the lawyer and their entire firm will often conflict themselves out from representation of anyone adverse to that potential client — who may never even become an actual paying client.
Most law firms have a system in place where anyone with a potential case sends a conflict message around all lawyers in the firm before taking a case.
Any normal practitioner has to be astounded at the “Schroedinger’s lawyers” in this matter.
Trump’s presentation is that he finds a conflict and, therefore, would never have hired Powell. That’s’ false. For starters, at the time, Trump would not have perceived Powell’s dual representation of him and Manafort a conflict, any more than he finds a conflict in Woodward’s representation of Trump and multiple witnesses against him. He would find it a conflict if they didn’t have the same lawyer, which he could control.
As EW says, whatever this approach is about, it’s not about conflicts in a lawyer’s representation.
Occam would suggest that he has no idea what the term means and he’s just tossing it out there because Woodward had to deal with it running up to the Garcia ruling that went his way the other day in SDFL, and it’s still somewhat in the front of what passes for his mind — and it’s attached to fresh, urgent feelings of vindication!
It doesn’t matter that Woodward’s conflict hearing is completely unrelated to what he’s inchoately trying convey about Powell; it’s just a word he caught wind of in a rare moment of positive reinforcement, and of course he thinks he’s omniscient, so out it comes!
Bruce, you do not have to respond to every comment left here. Minimalism is a valid concept.
“dual representation of him and Flynn”, yeah?
And then there’s the December 16 meeting where she nearly made Special Counsel. Her merry-go-round ride was brief, but she came soooo close to the brass ring.
Ew,
Trump, “ but that she would have been conflicted —“. Genius that he is always playing the long game, knows he pardoned Flynn, which could, in his own mind, present a conflict for Ms Powell, such that a good counselor would never breach an ethical obligation of privilege to Trump, if doing so exposes a conflict to a contracted client Flynn. Ooopsie. Fulton County made an offer Ms Powell couldn’t refuse conflicts notwithstanding.
If Trump is trying to remind Powell indirectly that revealing Trump’s secrets might thereby jeopardize the interests of a previous client, Manafort, to whom she would owe continuing obligations of loyalty and confidentiality, he’s forgetting a couple of things. There might be many topics she could discuss without implicating that conflict. And then there’s the crime-fraud exception, which might make any conflict moot.
Trump strikes me as operating with the mindset of “any conversation I have with a lawyer is privileged.”
Never mind that they may not be your lawyer (i.e., WH Counsel Office legal staff).
Never mind that other non-lawyers may be present for the conversation, thus removing obligations of confidentiality.
Never mind that if you are plotting a crime in the presence of (if not cooperation with) a lawyer, that erases any privilege.
None of that seems to matter to Trump, and it will bite him in the tail as these lawyers are called to testify.
Should “Manafort” be Flynn?
Yes
Thanks.
RE: Timeline
Minor point: Rudy hair dye presser was November 19
ty
That 11/22/20 Haberman story about Powell gets fishier and fishier over time.
The Times could do a great service to its readers by going back over that time in light of what is emerging in court about the Trump team’s scheme, and explain what their strategy really was, and how they were spinning the press.
I won’t hold my breath. We’ll almost certainly get the compromises they made three years ago continuing to warp their coverage today, because as long a Haberman is around they won’t be able to explain how much work she was doing to deliver their spin.
I could not escape thinking of the conflict issue (and Mr. Nauta) while watching one of the courtroom scenes in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Highly recommended BTW.
CapitolHunters has a THREAD starting off with Marcy’s post:
https://nitter.net/capitolhunters/status/1716242614083576135#m
Oct 22, 2023 · 11:58 PM UTC
Not illegal or unconstitutional though.
No, that part isn’t…but FLYNN was most likely involved in other things at the time, and pleaded “the Fifth” a LOT when he testified, which is his right, to be sure.
There is an interesting [imo] little timeline here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/12/23/michigans-fake-electors-transcripts-limn-black-holes-into-january-6/#comment-976380
Looks like Flynn pleaded the Fifth about a letter he was passing around that claimed CISA Director Chris Krebs gave credibility to Dominion lore. Maybe Sidney Powell knows more about that letter.
Flynn acted to promote the Capital riot and stop the certification of Joe as President.
” WASHINGTON — Michael Flynn appeared before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Thursday, in response to a subpoena asking him to testify about an Oval Office meeting at which, the panel said, then-President Donald Trump and others discussed seizing voting machines, several people familiar with the matter told NBC News. ”
“Flynn had also given an interview to Newsmax TV the day before in which he discussed the “purported precedent” for invoking martial law and deploying troops to “rerun” the election,” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/michael-flynn-testifies-closed-door-meeting-jan-6-committee-rcna19570
Trying to over throw the US government based on false election fraud claims I would think is criminal and Unconstitutional but I could be wrong.
If I am not I think Mike is in trouble.
CapitolHunters THREAD cont’d:
Here’s the THREAD at Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231023120337/https://nitter.net/capitolhunters/status/1716242614083576135#m
At the end of that THREAD, and why I bolded MARTIN [Jan 6 is not over.]:
Good catch on the Martin-to-Haley text msg.
A tiny bit of digging reveals the original source as J6 Committee’s deposition transcript, Vincent Haley.
The transcript indicates that the Martin-to-Haley exchange happened early on in the post-election-day scramble, as it also refers to a follow-up text on November 10th.
And it also refers to a Haley response to Martin about the then-proposed Flynn pardon, “I have recommended it” – although Haley, consistent with much else in his testimony, fails to remember to whom he sent that recommendation.
And here’s ClearingtheFog with an observation about this topic:
https://nitter.net/clearing_fog/status/1716170836196180042#m
Oct 22, 2023 · 7:13 PM UTC
And yet…Flynn remains unindicted. Thank you, harpie!
Flynn was already formally charged, and even pleaded guilty to the charge. Despite the unconscionable pardon, there is no question he has been charged.
It’s kind of amazing how much back-and-forth content there is on the internet about these seemingly unrelated guys, linking them repeatedly over years.
Just Google [“ed martin” “michael flynn”].
ADDER: Think if you don’t have this in your wealth of resources you’ll want to squirrel this away —
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/2021/07/30/ellenton-florida-election-fraud-michael-flynn-trump-national-security-adviser-americas-future/5427257001/ — if Flynn funded AZ, who/what funded the other states’ fake elector schemes and voting machine attacks?
desk/why-did-sidney-powell-plead-guilty) is full of interesting details. Source is a report by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation:
The New Yorker recently obtained a copy of a nearly four-hundred-page summary report produced by the G.B.I., detailing the Coffee County scheme, which has not been made public. The report, much of it relying on information gathered by the Coalition for Good Governance, offers a fuller picture of both the breach at the election office and how that breach was connected to the larger effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Includes this information, which was news to me, though perhaps not to others:
The chair of Georgia’s state-elections board at the time, a former federal judge named William Duffey, pushed, more than once, for the F.B.I. to get involved. But the agency punted, deferring to the G.B.I, despite the smaller agency’s modest resources and inability to cross state lines.
Sorry, lost the link in my sloppy cut-and-paste:
This New Yorker article from today (www.newyorker.[space] com/[space] news/news-desk/why-did-sidney-powell-plead-guilty) is full of interesting details. Source is a report by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
There is no need to artificially break links to trusted sources. Not NYT, nor Washington Post, nor the New Yorker.
Thanks!
Why Did Sidney Powell Plead Guilty? The former attorney for Donald Trump was one of nineteen people indicted in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to overturn the result of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-did-sidney-powell-plead-guilty [] Charles Bethea and Sue Halpern [] October 22, 2023
Who wrote this “document containing bullet points critical of a certain voting machine company”,
and who gave it to TRUMP?
Who are these “others”?
Hey look, someone in the media at least is a reader here :-) Marcy is quoted a few times.
https://www.newsweek .com/trump-pardon-flynn-sidney-powell-georgia-1836879
For the love of everything holy PLEASE do not “break” common links from known sites. Nobody will ever look at that link if this BS maintains.
Besides, the way you broke the link still takes a reader to newsweek. Rayne has said more times than she can count how to do it properly – for uncommon links that deserve it. For common sources such as newsweek, I would simply caution readers that it ain’t the reasonable newsweek of a few decades ago.
“For common sources such as newsweek, I would simply caution readers that it ain’t the reasonable newsweek of a few decades ago.”
Without a doubt, Newsweek has been in a steady decline for at least a decade. In particular, their editorial policy has come to embody the worst possible take on both-sidesism.
My favorite description of today’s Newsweek comes from The New Republic’s Alex Shephard: “Newsweek, the magazine you once read at the dentist, is like a batshit crazy version of the opinion section of The Wall Street Journal.” (https://newrepublic.com/article/158968/newsweek-rise-zombie-magazine)
Data points from articles below:
11/10/20 – Powell on Lou Dobbs show. Asked supporters to send $ to Defending the Republic website which redirected to the site for the Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic.
11/25/20 – Powell’s DTR site was live by this time. She had filed suits in MI and GA by this time. Flynn was pardoned.
12/1/20 – DTR incorporated in TX. Michael & Joseph Flynn became directors later that month.
12/18/20 – Powell, Flynn, Byrne in Oval Office with Trump and wanted Powell to be Special Counsel.
12/20/20 – Powell is seen exiting residential side of WH (CNN)
1/8/21 – Dominion files $1.3B suit against Powell and DTR (Defending the Republic.)
2/21 (late in month) – New DTR incorporated in FL. Mike Lindell is listed as director but asks to be removed when he finds out.
3/5/21 – Powell asks Patrick Byrne to join the FL DTR. Flynn calls Byrne, too. Byrne agrees to help thru July. Team includes Rob Weaver, co-founder of Jericho March, Emily Newman, Joseph Flynn & Michael Flynn.
3/22/21 – Powell’s Dominion court filing angers FL DTR team when she stated she could not be held liable, in part because “reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact.”
4/8/21 – Powell chastises DTR staff for being “panicked” and “immature” after that filing, telling them that “Drama needs to go.”
4/9/21 – Byrne, both Flynns and other staff resign.
4/16/21 (?) – An LLC of Powell’s closes on a property in VA.
Defending the Republic (DTR) filed a financial statement in FL stating it raised $14.9 million between Dec. 1, 2020, and July 31. It spent $5.6M on legal fees, awards, grants, etc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/sidney-powell-defending-republic-donations/2021/12/06/61bdb004-53ef-11ec-8769-2f4ecdf7a2ad_story.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/20/politics/sidney-powell-white-house-trump-election/index.html
Adding:
12/12/20 – Jericho March in DC was part of the larger MAGA march there in December 2020. I don’t know where Sidney Powell was that day, but she had emissaries there. Two federal employees, Arina Grossu and Rob Weaver, were there pressing Ali Alexander to spread Powell’s message. Weaver was once part of her Defending the Republic (Florida) effort (see 3/5/21 in list above.)
Also there that day were Stewart Rhodes and Alex Jones. Enrique Tarrio was there, too. Tarrio claimed to have had a tour of the WH that day, even though things were shut down for Covid.
And Cathy Latham (of Georgia) said she had a tour of the WH around that time, as well. I wonder if she saw Tarrio or Powell.
“On November 16, 2020, on the Defendant’s behalf, his executive assistant sent CoConspirator 3 and others a document containing bullet points critical of a certain voting machine company, writing, “See attached – Please include as is, or almost as is, in lawsuit.” CoConspirator 3 responded nine minutes later, writing, “IT MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE in those states and machines impounded for non-partisan professional inspection.””
Is the Defendant Trump? Was Trump made aware at that time the election claims were false? Just because his executive assistant sent the order should not protect Trump.
“Prosecutors and lawyers don’t usually pursue criminal and civil cases that lack sufficient evidence. Occasionally, however, criminal charges or civil lawsuits are maliciously filed. This is done to intimidate, harass, defame, or otherwise injure the other party. In response, the injured party can file a malicious prosecution case in a civil legal proceeding.”
“Examples of malicious prosecution may be:
An unscrupulous prosecutor filing false charges against a political rival”. https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/malicious-prosecution.html.
Trump ordered Sydney, Rudy how many other lawyers to file cases challenging the Presidential election after he was told Presidential election fraud claims were false.
Not paying them is not a defense he gave the order Sydney jumped.
Forgive me if this has been addressed, I did a search on the relevant pages here, but couldn’t find anything.
With Sydney cooperating, will she have to disclose why she funded the defense for Oath Keppers Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Connie Meggs, and Proud Boy Zachery Rehl?
And would that help to tie the violence of Jan.6 directly to Trump and the greater conspiracy?