Trump Tells Sidney Powell He Won't Name Her ‘Special Counsel’
Donald Trump informed the conspiracy-theory-driven MAGA attorney Sidney Powell on Monday that he does not intend to appoint her “special counsel” to investigate “election fraud,” according to two people with knowledge of the matter and another source close to the White House.
Trump had met with Powell and others in the Oval Office on Friday to discuss, among other items, the possibility of appointing her to such a position. The president has been captivated by Powell’s extreme views and anti-democratic ideas for nullifying this year’s presidential election that Joe Biden won—to the point that Powell continued to be given an audience at the White House and with Trump in the subsequent days.
But Trump has now buckled at the prospect of giving her such a formal portfolio for pursuing her conspiracy theories around voter irregularities and fraud, which include a supposed Venezuelan plot to rig the election. Asked whether Trump told Powell that she wouldn’t be “special counsel,” Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani—who leads the president’s post-election legal team—told The Daily Beast on Tuesday: “Yes,” adding, “she is no longer part of [our] team. She is on her own.”
The divisions have created two distinct camps within Trump’s remaining legal team, with Powell in one corner and almost everyone else in another. On Monday, outgoing Attorney General William Barr said he has no interest in appointing such a special counsel to investigate baseless allegations of a massive election-fraud conspiracy. Barr would not be needed for the president to make such an appointment of his own. But absent the sign off of the Department of Justice, that person would be operating as an adjunct White House lawyer.
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