Sidney Powell should hand over bar card
Sidney Powell seems to be talking out of both sides of her mouth. On Oct. 19 in Georgia, the former lawyer for Donald Trump pleaded guilty to six reduced criminal charges stemming from her efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state. Powell even agreed to issue an apology to Georgia residents.
But here at home in Dallas, where Powell still lists a Turtle Creek Boulevard address for her law practice, she doesn’t seem penitent at all.
Powell continues to vigorously fight a disciplinary lawsuit filed against her last year by the State Bar of Texas, which says she violated several ethics rules when she filed frivolous voter fraud lawsuits against not only Georgia but also Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.
In a recent filing before the 5th District Court of Appeals, Powell says the bar has no evidence to support its claims and that its case should never have been brought.
Powell, who even Trump has since disavowed, is wasting taxpayer money by keeping up this court fight. It’s time for her to surrender her Texas bar card and be consistent in her words and actions.
The bar has no evidence? Powell had no evidence when she pushed the conspiracy theory that the operator of voting machines in Georgia and other battleground states was working in concert with foreign dictators, state officials and even county workers to rig votes in favor of Joe Biden.
She and her out-there allegations have now been completely discredited. Just ask the folks at Fox News, which in April agreed to a $787.5 million settlement to resolve a defamation case brought by the voting machine operator. Powell appeared often on Fox News in the days after the election, pushing her conspiracy theory without evidence.
Surprisingly, Claire Reynolds, a bar spokesperson, told us Powell’s Georgia guilty pleas do not affect the Texas case because technically “the conduct at issue in the appeal is different from the conduct at issue in Georgia.” State district Judge Andrea Bouressa of Collin County threw out the bar’s case in February largely based on clerical errors the bar made in some of its filings. The case is currently pending on appeal.
Could the Georgia pleas be grounds for new Texas disciplinary action against Powell? Quite possibly. Reynolds said the misdemeanors Powell admitted to do not involve “moral turpitude,” nor do they involve “theft, embezzlement or fraudulent or reckless misappropriation of money,” so they don’t trigger her compulsory disbarment.
But Reynolds said she couldn’t comment on whether the bar would bring another “fact-based” disciplinary action against Powell based on her Georgia pleas.
Powell couldn’t be reached for comment. But Robert Holmes, her attorney in the Texas case, said calling for her to voluntarily drop the case and turn in her bar card was “crazy.”
It’s actually just the right and honorable thing to do.
She and her out-there allegations have now been completely discredited. Just ask the folks at Fox News, which in April agreed to a $787.5 million settlement to resolve a defamation case brought by the voting machine operator. Powell appeared often on Fox News in the days after the election, pushing her conspiracy theory without evidence.