WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has named attorney Sidney Powell, who was fired from his campaign legal team after pushing unfounded conspiracy theories, as a special lawyer who investigates voter fraud allegations as he grabs straw to stay in power.
During a meeting Friday at the White House, Trump went so far as to argue for Powell’s security clearance, according to two people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.
That Trump even entertains the idea of installing Powell underscores the increasingly desperate steps he has been heavy as he tries to reverse the results of the Nov. 3 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has been entertaining conspiracy theories and extravagant plans to try to stay in office, prompted by allies such as former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
It is unclear whether Trump intends to attempt to move forward with the effort to install Powell. Under federal law, the U.S. Attorney General, not the president, is responsible for appointing special counsel. And many Republicans, from outgoing Attorney General William Barr to governors and state election officials, have said time and time again that there is no evidence of the kind of massive election fraud that Trump has been alleging unfounded in the weeks since he lost. The New York Times first reported Friday’s meeting.
In addition to losing the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, Trump decisively lost the Electoral College to Biden, 306 electoral votes against 232.
The Trump campaign and its allies have filed about 50 lawsuits alleging widespread voting fraud and almost all of them have been dismissed or withdrawn. Trump has lost to the judges of both political parties, including some he nominated, and some of the strongest reproaches have come from conservative Republicans. The Supreme Court has also refused to take on two cases: decisions that Trump has disregarded.
With no other sustainable legal recourse, Trump has been seeking options from the Allies as he refuses to accept his loss.
This includes Giuliani, who during Friday’s meeting pushed Trump to seize voting machines in his search for evidence of fraud. The Department of Homeland Security made it clear, however, that it had no authority to do so. Nor is it clear what would be achieved.
Barr told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this month that Justice and Homeland Security departments have studied claims that voting machines “were essentially programmed to distort election results … and so far we have not seen nothing that proves this “. Ballot papers are also kept under federal law and have been used to verify results, including in Georgia, which conducted two counts of ballot audits using ballot backups.
Flynn, whom Trump recently forgave for lying to the FBI, went even further, suggesting that Trump could impose martial law and use the military to run elections again. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and White House attorney Pat Cipollone voiced their objections, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Powell was initially part of the president’s campaign legal team, but was ripped off after a strange press conference with Giuliani in which he made a series of extravagant claims of election fraud, including the claim that the software electoral was created in Venezuela “under the direction of Hugo Chávez”: the Venezuelan president who died in 2013.
In interviews and appearances, Powell continued to make misleading statements about the voting process, unfolding complex, unsupported conspiracy theories involving communist regimes, and vowed to “exploit” Georgia with a “biblical” judicial presentation.
Trump’s team soon announced that it had severed ties with Powell. “She is not a member of Trump’s legal team. She is also not a personal lawyer for the president,” Giuliani and another Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, said in a statement.
Dominion Voting Systems, a particular target of Powell, has also demanded that it retract the “savage” and “baseless knowledge” claims it has made about the voting machine company and that it has threatened a defamation suit.
Since separating from the campaign, Powell has continued to file lawsuits on Trump’s behalf, teaming up with Conservative lawyer L. Lin Wood in Georgia.
Powell and the White House did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
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Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.