Sidney Katherine Powell
Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney and former federal prosecutor who became a prominent and controversial figure on Donald Trump’s post-2020 election legal team. Infamous for her public pledge to “release the Kraken” via sweeping, unsuccessful lawsuits alleging mass voter fraud, she has since pivoted into an extensive legal and probationary defense after becoming the first high-profile Trump co-defendant to take a plea deal.
⚖️ Georgia Election Interference Guilty Plea
-
- The Plea Deal: On October 19, 2023—just one day before jury selection was scheduled to begin for her trial—Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.
- The Admission: The charges were tied to her role in an unauthorized January 2021 breach of voting systems and election machinery at an office in Coffee County, Georgia.
- The Sentence: A Fulton County judge sentenced Powell to six years of probation. She was also ordered to pay a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia, and write an official letter of apology to the citizens of Georgia.
- Cooperation Agreement: As a strict condition of her ongoing probation, Powell is required to testify truthfully against her remaining co-defendants, including Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, in future trials.
💼 Career Background & “The Kraken”
-
- The 2020 Election Strategy: Following the 2020 election, Powell aggressively promoted conspiracy theories alleging that voting machines had been manipulated by foreign actors to flip votes. She filed four federal lawsuits (frequently referred to as the “Kraken” cases) in Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin, all of which were swiftly dismissed by federal judges for lack of evidence.
- Defamation & Professional Lawsuits: Powell faces severe multi-billion dollar civil defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies, including Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, over her public claims regarding their technology. While she successfully defeated a specific state ethics appeal brought by the State Bar of Texas in early 2024, federal courts in Detroit previously sanctioned her for “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” an order that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review.
- Early Practice: Long before the 2020 election, Powell served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Texas and the Southern District of Texas. She later transitioned into private appellate practice and represented high-profile clients, including Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn.
🎓 Education & Publications
-
- Academic Degrees: Powell completed her undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1978.
- Author: She authored the books Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice and Conviction Machine, which focus on federal prosecutorial misconduct.
