Donald Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, one day before jury selection for her trial alongside fellow former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro was due to commence.
Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of six years probation and she will also be required to testify at future trials — potentially against the former president — and write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia.
In the sprawling indictment laid out by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Powell was accused of playing a leading role in the January 2021 breach of election systems in rural Coffee County, Georgia.
Crucially, she is the first of Trump’s inner circle to plead guilty.
Meanwhile, the former president’s $250m civil fraud trial in New York was briefly disrupted when a woman, later identified as a court employee, walked toward the front of the courtroom yelling at the former president that she wanted to assist him.
Mr Trump returned to court this week, giving impromptu press conferences in the halls of the Lower Manhattan courthouse, and raised an objection from the New York Attorney General Letitia James’s team for talking during testimony.
Trump scheduled to be questioned in lawsuits from ex-FBI employees who sent negative texts about him
Lawyers, Trump and money: Ex-president spends millions in donor cash on attorneys as legal woes grow