WASHINGTON – In a potential blow to Donald Trump, one of his former lawyers pleaded guilty on Thursday in the case alleging that the former United States president led a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia.

Sidney Powell, 68, a vocal Trump supporter who pushed outlandish conspiracy theories about the manipulation of voting machines, was indicted in August along with the former president and 17 others.

In a surprise deal reached just days before her trial was scheduled to begin in Atlanta, Georgia, Powell entered into a plea agreement with Fulton County prosecutors.

She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanour counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties and was sentenced to six years of probation by Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

Powell, who was originally charged with racketeering, a felony, and other offences, agreed as part of the plea agreement to testify at the upcoming trials of her co-defendants in the case.

“You’re to testify truthfully against any and all co-defendants in this matter at any upcoming proceedings,” Judge McAfee said.

Powell, nicknamed “The Kraken” after the movie monster from Clash Of The Titans, was fined US$6,000 (S$8,200), ordered to pay restitution of US$2,700 and to write a letter of apology to the citizens of Georgia.

Following the November 2020 presidential election, Powell peddled preposterous theories about voting machine manipulation that Trump allegedly acknowledged sounded “crazy”, but promoted anyway.

‘Influence the outcome’

According to the Georgia indictment, Trump met Powell, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others at the White House on Dec 18, 2020, several weeks before the end of his term, and discussed “strategies and theories intended to influence the outcome” of the election.

Among the moves allegedly considered but eventually abandoned was naming Powell as special counsel with “broad authority to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere”.

Powell is the second co-defendant in the sprawling racketeering case to enter a guilty plea.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty in September to five counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties.

Powell and Hall were among the co-defendants charged with tampering with voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, following the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, where Mr Biden won by some 12,000 votes.

Trial was to have begun on Monday

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin on Monday in a joint trial of Powell and another co-defendant, Kenneth Chesebro.

Powell and Cheseboro, who is also an attorney, were the only two co-defendants to invoke their right to a speedy trial.

Powell originally faced charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft and other offences that could have been punished by prison time.

She is also being sued for defamation in separate cases by two voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic.

Chesebro is accused of orchestrating a plan to submit fake electors to Congress in a bid to block certification of Mr Biden’s election victory.

Others indicted in Georgia include Giuliani, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, constitutional lawyer John Eastman, and Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official.

Trump also faces federal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and is to go on trial in that case in Washington in March 2024. AFP