WASHINGTON — Sidney Powell, the Dallas lawyer who was once a key member of Donald Trump’s legal team until the former president’s personal attorneys publicly disavowed her, has been the subject of renewed focus as the House panel probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot continues its bombshell public hearings.
On Tuesday, during the panel’s seventh public hearing on the attack and how it developed, Powell again found herself in the spotlight as the committee released more details about a December 2020 meeting one aide called “unhinged.”
As dozens of lawsuits and his claims of voter fraud fizzled, Trump met late into the night of Dec. 18 with Powell and other attorneys at the White House before tweeting the rally invitation — “Be there, will be wild!”
Here are five things to know about Powell:
—Seizing voting machines
In her opening statement during the committee’s first public hearing in June, Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s top Republican, said Trump met with Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Patrick Byrne, the former head of the online retail company Overstock, on Dec. 18 to discuss “dramatic steps.”
These steps, Cheney said, included ideas like re-running the election and having the military seize voting machines. Cheney framed this meeting as the spark that inspired Trump to tweet later that night, “Be there,” referring to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. “Will be Wild!”
The committee also confirmed Tuesday that Trump even discussed tapping Powell to be the special counsel overseeing an investigation of voter fraud, a plan his advisers, including Giuliani, opposed.
The Los Angeles Times reported that on that same date in December, Powell, Flynn and Byrne presented Trump with a draft executive order the president could use to take control of voting machines used in the 2020 election.
The Jan. 6 panel first subpoenaed Powell, along with Giuliani and Trump campaign attorneys Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn, in January of this year.
—Keeping a public profile
Powell has continued to appear at conservative events promoting Trump’s unproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Powell was scheduled to attend and speak at a screening event in June for the pro-Trump film “2,000 Mules” in Dallas with Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.
Promotional materials for the event, hosted by the Dallas Jewish Conservatives, said Powell would be there signing copies of two books she’s written, "Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice" and "Conviction Machine: Standing Up to Federal Prosecutorial Abuse."
—State Bar of Texas proceedings
The State Bar of Texas is looking to levy sanctions against Powell over her failed attempts to contest the 2020 election results on the Trump campaign’s behalf.
A state bar committee filed a petition in March accusing Powell of professional misconduct over her filing of “frivolous” voter fraud lawsuits in four states, making false statements to a court and offering evidence she knew to be false.
The petition asks the court to determine an appropriate sanction, which could range anywhere from reprimand to disbarment. This is in addition to sanctions Powell has already faced in Michigan and a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems Corp. for spreading conspiracy theories related to their voting machines.
“The Texas bar decision was totally expected, but it is an unfortunate and poor decision by the bar,” Powell told Reuters. “No lawyer could practice law under the rule they would set for me.”
—Disavowed by Trump insiders
After promoting outlandish and unfounded allegations about an international conspiracy to steal the election in November 2020, Giuliani and Ellis publicly disavowed Powell and made it clear she was no longer affiliated with the Trump campaign.
“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,” they said in a statement.
A Trump adviser reportedly told The New York Times that Powell “was too conspiratorial even for (Trump).”
—Texas connections
Powell has been licensed to practice law in Texas since 1978.
Powell is originally from Durham, North Carolina, but she served as an assistant U.S. attorney and appellate section chief in the Western and Northern Districts of Texas.
In Western Texas, Powell was a prosecutor in the trial of American drug trafficker Jimmy Chagra for criminal enterprise violations. Among other crimes, Chagra was implicated in the 1979 assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio, Texas.
Powell established her law firm in Dallas, focusing on high-profile lawsuits in 1993. She is affiliated with the Texas State Bar, and she was a member of the Dallas Bar Association until the end of 2014, according to the association.
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(This report contains material from The Dallas Morning News archives.)
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