Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor charged with breaching election machines in Georgia, had nothing to do with the breach, save for paying for it after the fact, and only because the forensic firm that did it threatened to dump the data online, her lawyer said in a recent court filing.
Ms. Powell was charged as part of the election interference case against former President Donald Trump that was brought on Aug. 14 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. It alleges that the efforts of President Trump and 18 others, including Ms. Powell, to challenge the 2020 election results amounted to a racketeering conspiracy.
Ms. Willis has accused Ms. Powell of participating in the alleged conspiracy and conspiracies to commit computer trespass, computer theft, computer invasion of privacy, election fraud, and defrauding the state.
The charges are tied to a Jan. 7, 2021, incident in which personnel of data forensic company SullivanStrickler copied data from election machines and computers in Coffee County, Georgia.
The lawyer for Ms. Powell, Brian Rafferty, has vehemently denied the allegations and is seeking dismissal of the charges.
Mr. Rafferty has argued that examination of the machines wasn’t a crime because it was authorized by the Coffee County Election Board. Even if the board didn’t ultimately have the authority to allow the examination, the people involved operated under the belief that their action was authorized. For their actions to be criminal, they would have to have been undertaken with a knowing lack of authority.
Further still, however, Ms. Powell didn’t organize or participate in the incident, Mr. Rafferty asserted.
“There are no communications of any kind between Ms. Powell and any of the alleged coconspirators or unindicted coconspirators that evince any agreement by Ms. Powell to have Sullivan|Strickler personnel to travel to Coffee County or to contract for their services for Coffee County—much less to do so for any illegal purpose,” he said in a Sept. 28 filing.
Ms. Powell challenged the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, but she never represented President Trump, he said.
By Petr Svab
