President Donald Trump told advisers during a White House meeting on Friday he wanted to name Sidney Powell a special counsel for election fraud, according to multiple reports.
The meeting: Trump is considering appointing Powell to investigate and commandeer voting machines which were allegedly manipulated to steal the 2020 election from him, The New York Times reported, citing two sources “briefed on the discussion.”
- Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were all in attendance, while Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani joined the discussion by phone.
- Politico reported that some senior White House officials at the meeting vehemently pushed back on the suggestion of naming Powell as special counsel.
- Meanwhile, escalating efforts to overturn the election have reportedly led Trump and his allies to contemplate drastic remedies, such as invoking martial law.
The Kraken: Powell has made wild allegations regarding voter fraud in the 2020 election, including that Cuba, Venezuela, the Clinton Foundation, billionaire George Soros and antifa were all connected to a scheme to rig the election for Joe Biden.
- The former federal prosecutor has launched various legal challenges – with little to no success – in her bid to unleash the “Kraken.”
- While Powell’s efforts have led to her being lionized as a fearless patriot by the president’s most diehard supporters, even some of Trump’s allies on the right have expressed skepticism toward her claims.
- “Sidney Powell took the very serious issue of voter fraud and turned it into an embarrassing sideshow circus that will now undermine all of the extremely serious and valid concerns we have,” the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh tweeted in November. “And many conservatives with large platforms knowingly helped her do it. It’s infuriating.”
In late November, the Trump camp appeared to distance itself from Powell by issuing a statement clarifying she was not a member of the president’s legal team.
