Convicted of
Sidney Powell spent a decade as one of the youngest federal prosecutors in the country, serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Texas and Virginia from the late 1970s, before entering private practice in Dallas in 1993. Over more than twenty years in private practice she led more than 500 federal appeals, became known for cases involving corporate fraud, and authored Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (2014). She entered Trump's orbit in 2020 through her work advocating for disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn, and in the weeks after the November 2020 election became the most prominent legal architect of the claim that voting machines had been systematically manipulated to steal the election.
In November 2020, Powell appeared alongside Giuliani at the November 19 RNC press conference and publicly vowed to "release the Kraken" — a reference to her planned lawsuits in battleground states. She filed sweeping federal suits in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona alleging that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been programmed to switch votes, that the software had been created at Hugo Chávez's direction to rig elections in Venezuela, and that a coordinated multi-state fraud had produced Biden's victory. The suits were widely derided for factual errors, misspelled plaintiff names, named locations that did not exist, and contained no credible evidentiary support; all were dismissed. The Trump campaign publicly distanced itself from Powell in late November 2020, though she continued her campaign independently. Through her nonprofit organization Defending the Republic, she raised more than $16 million in the months following the election, part of which was used to fund forensic access to voting equipment across multiple states.
The most consequential of these operations was the Coffee County, Georgia breach. On January 7, 2021 — the day after rioters stormed Congress — employees of SullivanStrickler LLC, an Atlanta-based data company retained by Powell's organization for approximately $26,000, gained access to the Coffee County elections office with the assistance of Coffee County GOP Chair Cathy Latham (herself one of the fake electors appointed to falsely certify Trump's victory), elections supervisor Misty Hampton, and a board member. The team copied hard drives and accessed the proprietary Dominion voting system software. SullivanStrickler's chief operating officer subsequently emailed Powell to confirm: "Everything went smoothly yesterday with the Coffee County collection."
In August 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis included Powell among the 19 defendants in the sweeping RICO indictment against Trump and his allies. Powell faced seven felony counts: one count of violating Georgia's RICO statute and six counts tied specifically to her role in orchestrating the Coffee County voting system breach and the broader conspiracy to interfere with Georgia's election administration. In a separate federal civil proceeding, Dominion Voting Systems sued Powell for $1.3 billion in January 2021, alleging she had knowingly spread false claims about the company to defraud Trump supporters into donations; Powell's lawyers argued in court that "no reasonable person" would have taken her claims as statements of fact. The case was settled confidentially.
On October 19, 2023 — less than a week before she was due to stand trial — Powell entered a surprise guilty plea in Fulton County Superior Court to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. As part of the plea agreement she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, provide truthful testimony at any future hearings or trials involving co-defendants (including Trump), and record a statement for prosecutors.
Original sentence
Powell was sentenced on October 19, 2023, to six years of probation, a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution to the State of Georgia, and was required to write a letter of apology to the people of Georgia. No prison term was imposed.
On November 10, 2025, President Trump included Powell in a group pardon of 77 individuals granting "full, complete, and unconditional" clemency for any conduct related to their efforts concerning the 2020 election. However, as Powell had been charged and convicted exclusively at the state level in Georgia — not under any federal statute — the presidential pardon had no direct legal effect on her Georgia conviction, probation, or other sentence conditions. The Texas State Bar pursued disciplinary proceedings against Powell on two separate tracks following her guilty plea but was unsuccessful on both: a Texas appeals court upheld a ruling in her favor on the election lawsuit conduct in April 2024, and the Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals subsequently determined that her Georgia misdemeanor convictions did not constitute "serious crimes" under Texas law, meaning she faced no compulsory discipline and retained her law license.