Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tried to distance the campaign from attorney Sidney Powell after she pushed a bizarre conspiracy theory about the election that was apparently too much for even President Donald Trump.
Giuliani said in a statement that Powell, who is also Michael Flynn’s lawyer, was not part of Trump’s legal team even though she appeared with him at a press conference last week and Trump himself touted her defense on Twitter.
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Giuliani and legal adviser Jenna 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.”
"I agree with the statement today. I will represent #WeThePeople and seek the Truth,” Powell told The Wall Street Journal. “I intend to expose all the fraud and let the chips fall where they may. We will not allow the foundations of this great Republic to be destroyed by abject fraud."
Powell pulled GOP into conspiracy:
The statement came after Powell pushed a baseless conspiracy theory about a foreign effort to switch votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden without any evidence. On Saturday, she alleged that Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was involved in a bribery scandal stemming from the conspiracy.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson tried to bring Powell on his show to cite any evidence for her claim but she refused.
“When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her,” Carlson said. “When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given any evidence either. Nor did she provide any today.”
Powell went too far, even for Trump:
Trump advisers spent the weekend urging him to get rid of Powell, according to the New York Times. “One of those people said that even Mr. Giuliani had recognized that she had gone too far.”
The president had latched on to Powell’s baseless conspiracy theory but ultimately cut her loose on Sunday.
Though the campaign appears to be scapegoating Powell, Giuliani has not had much better luck pushing his own unfounded conspiracy theories.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania rejected his widely-hyped attempt to overturn votes in the state on Sunday, writing that Giuliani only provided “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were “unsupported by evidence.”
“This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together,” he said.
