Editor’s Note: Jennifer Rodgers is a former federal prosecutor, adjunct professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and a CNN legal analyst. The opinions expressed here are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.
When Sidney Powell famously threatened to “release the kraken,” she surely meant something different than what has come to pass.
Having failed to keep former President Donald Trump in the White House through allegedly illegal schemes to overturn the 2020 election results, leading to criminal charges in Georgia, Powell has released herself from the case by pleading guilty to six misdemeanor offenses and agreeing to testify truthfully against her codefendants as part of her plea deal.
Powell’s testimony is hugely important and her plea is a big breakthrough for prosecutors. She is the first cooperating witness who was part of the limited group that met with Trump to craft the plans to overthrow the election. She was also present at an infamous meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020 that devolved into a screaming match.
To date, outside advisers like Powell, who supported plans to seize voting machines, among other things, had maintained in subpoenaed testimony that their actions were justified.
The existence of the plea deal suggests her testimony at trial will be different — and that Georgia prosecutors are not only convinced that it is credible and reliable, but also that it can help them convict other defendants in the case.
As a result, Powell’s plea could be devastating for Trump and her other former co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case. Her testimony could potentially play a significant role in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith as well.
The Georgia case
The most immediate impact of Powell’s plea is likely to be felt by her co-defendants in the Georgia case, starting with Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the fake electors’ plot, whose trial starts next week. Chesebro reportedly rejected a recent plea offer, according to sources who spoke to ABC; perhaps he may reconsider now that Powell has pleaded and is prepared to testify.
It’s not entirely clear, however, that prosecutors would use Powell’s testimony at Chesebro’s trial, given that the indictment does not allege that they were involved together in any specifically charged actions. Prosecutors could choose to focus more intently on the parts of the conspiracy involving Chesebro—namely, the scheme to convene alternate slates of electors to be used to disrupt the election certification process.
Powell’s cooperation is also very bad news for two other groups of defendants in the Georgia case. The lower-level defendants indicted over their actions in Coffee County, Georgia, should be very concerned about proceeding to trial with a second cooperating witness now on board, after Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman reached a plea deal in September.
But more critically, Powell’s interactions with Trump and his inner circle mean that the most important names at the top of the indictment — particularly Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — could be directly implicated by her potential testimony.
Truthful testimony by Powell should include her involvement in the plans to steal the 2020 election through false public statements, frivolous litigation, the seizure of voting machines and the sidelining of Trump’s actual legal advisers in favor of Powell and others willing to do whatever it took to succeed.
Powell’s testimony should also include what Trump, Meadows, Giuliani and others said in meetings and other interactions in which the plot and its execution were discussed. This insider’s view was something that had been previously missing, and it will likely be devastating at trial.
Many of Powell’s past statements have been egregiously false — like baseless claims that the Clinton Foundation, philanthropist George Soros, and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were responsible for manipulating voting machines to change the results — and her connection to a key figure in the QAnon conspiracy world must have been troubling to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s team as they thought about her as a government witness.
That suggests to me that, for prosecutors to sign this deal and have confidence in Powell as a witness, Powell must have fully conceded that her prior positions were baseless and false and that she will come clean about that on the stand.
Federal case
Powell was identified as an unnamed co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment — which means that a charge in that case may be coming.
If that comes to pass, it is unclear whether Powell would cooperate in that case. Just because she struck a plea deal with Willis’ office doesn’t necessarily mean she will do the same in the federal election interference case.
But the fact that Powell cooperated in Georgia does make it more likely that she will try to cooperate with Smith in exchange for some sort of deal. Once someone gets over the hurdle of the first guilty plea, they are much more likely to resolve other matters similarly.
But if federal prosecutors do charge Powell, they will be able to use Powell’s plea statements and any testimony from the Georgia case against her, leaving her with few options to fight a federal case if it is brought.
At a minimum, federal prosecutors will have more information to decide what to do about Powell and how to proceed, which can only help them as they move toward Trump’s March 2024 trial date.
Powell’s legal troubles are not over. She still faces potential jeopardy in the federal election interference case, as well as major lawsuits by two voting machine companies, There have also been efforts to sanction or disbar her in jurisdictions in which she filed and litigated frivolous lawsuits and made defamatory claims, which may gain steam following her guilty plea.
But she has limited the damage to herself in Georgia, while at the same time providing prosecutors with a major weapon in their efforts to hold the rest of the defendants, including former President Trump, accountable for their conduct.