Trump sought to tap Sidney Powell as special counsel for election fraud

Source: Politico | December 19, 2020 | Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

Powell, an attorney for onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn, has led the president’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

President Donald Trump told advisers Friday night he wanted to name attorney Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate his loss in the 2020 election, and to consider seizing voting machines Trump has falsely suggested were manipulated to rig the outcome against him.

As the clock ticks down on the remainder of the president’s term, top officials are growing alarmed by his fixation with overturning the results of the Nov. 3 contest, according to a senior administration official. Many are concerned that he is turning to fringe characters such as Powell for advice and support, this person added, while tuning out the views of officials who have expressed skepticism about the effort.

A source familiar with the Oval Office meeting said it included Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani as well as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has suggested in recent days that the president could invoke martial law as he seeks to pursue baseless allegations of voter fraud. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushed back against the idea of a special counsel.

The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.

Powell, a conservative firebrand who represented Flynn in his long-running fight against a criminal for lying to the FBI, also has amplified calls for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Since early November, she has spearheaded a wide-ranging legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election results that has been sharply rejected in courts across the country.

According to the person familiar with Friday’s meeting, the animated gathering featured yelling and screaming, with the lawyers often accusing each other of failing to sufficiently support the president’s efforts. Flynn and Powell both said they needed the Trump administration to do more to support their efforts to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s win. Giuliani and Powell also turned their ire on each other. The source said National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, a successor to Flynn, participated by phone.

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Trump could name Powell or someone else as a special counsel without Justice Department buy-in, but that person would lack the powerful tools federal prosecutors have to demand evidence and compel testimony through grand juries and other legal mechanisms available only to formally appointed Justice Department attorneys.

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