President Donald Trump’s legal team distanced themselves from attorney Sidney Powell on Sunday evening, noting that she did not represent the president, either as part of the team or in his personal capacity.
In a statement attributed to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis, the team said: “Sidney Powell is practicing 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.”
A source who spoke to Breitbart News on background suggested that the team had hoped to work with her, but that Powell’s public claims had gone beyond the scope of the evidence they had seen and believed they could prove in court.
Powell had pursued a theory that Dominion voting machines, operating with Smartmatic software, were manipulable and had been responsible for switching votes from Trump to Democratic challenger Joe Biden. She also alleged that Dominion had worked with foreign governments, including Venezuela, and produced an affidavit purporting to support that allegation.
She had not yet provided evidence that votes had actually been changed, however, and has faced increasing public criticism.
Powell, an outspoken conservative, gained wide acclaim for her representation of former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.), who withdrew his guilty plea after being prosecuted for lying to the FBI.
Flynn’s previous lawyers had negotiated a plea agreement, but after new evidence emerged of conflicts of interest at the Department of Justice (DOJ), he asked Powell to take up his defense. The DOJ is trying to drop the prosecution, but the judge in the case has not agreed.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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