Trump claims Sidney Powell was 'never' his lawyer after her plea deal

Former President Donald Trump is distancing himself from attorney Sidney Powell in the wake of her guilty plea in the Georgia election interference case.

“Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN," Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday.

"Despite the Fake News reports to the contrary, and without even reaching out to ask the Trump Campaign, MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS," he wrote.

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Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleads guilty in election case

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Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit election interference in Fulton County Superior Court last week, a day before she was set to stand trial on felony racketeering charges.

Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, told NBC News that Trump’s assertion about Powell “is another example of Trump re-writing history and changing facts for his own purposes.”

Segall also said on the social media platform X that the assertion wasn't helpful to Trump's cause. "So much for any claims of attorney/client privilege. Not smart," he wrote.

That's a reference to a privilege that protects private communications between attorneys and their clients. The privilege is not absolute — it can be circumvented by what is known as the crime-fraud exception if the communications are shown to be in furtherance of a crime.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who's prosecuting the federal election interference and classified documents cases against Trump, had to engage in extensive, time-consuming litigation on the issue when he sought and won testimony from Trump attorney Evan Corcoran.

Asked by an NBC News reporter at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Monday whether he was concerned that he won't be covered by attorney-client privilege with Powell, Trump said: “No, not at all. We did nothing wrong."

Trump once touted Powell's involvement in his legal team's efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in the days after his loss.

"I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!" he tweeted on Nov. 14, 2020.

Five days later, Giuliani held a news conference with those attorneys, including Powell, at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. "We're representing President Trump and the Trump campaign," Giuliani said at the time.

At the news conference, Powell made sweeping and bogus claims of a multinational conspiracy to change the results of the presidential election. The campaign appeared to cut ties with her days later, after she suggested Republican officials in Georgia had taken payoffs to fix the election.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Giuliani and Ellis said in a statement. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”

Despite the apparent split, Powell kept challenging the election results in court and was part of a Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting at which Trump discussed naming her a special counsel to investigate voter fraud.

Powell distanced herself from Trump and his campaign after she, the former president and 17 other people were hit with racketeering and other charges related to efforts to overturn the presidential election results in Georgia by the Fulton County district attorney's office.

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“Contrary to widely publicized false statements in the media, Sidney Powell did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign. She had no engagement agreement with either,” her defense attorney wrote in a court filing in August.

A spokesperson for Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on his conflicting statements about Powell's involvement.

In a statement after Powell's guilty plea, Trump attorney Steve Sadow said, “Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case, which he maintains is part of a politically motivated "witch hunt" against him.