The Jan. 6 Committee Presents: Sidney Powell, In Her Own Bugf*ck Words
This is … a lot.
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
On its way out the door, the January 6 Select Committee published the transcript of Kraken attorney Sidney Powell’s May 7 deposition, and, friends, it does not disappoint. Finally, we learn what it takes for Rudy Giuliani to declare someone “unfit to practice law!”
There’s a lot she’s hazy on:
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STAFF COUNSEL: So what’s the first thing you recall about getting involved after the election? I know I’ve been trying to sort of probe your memory as best I can about those chaotic days, but what do you remember is the first actions you took in the post-election time frame?
POWELL: Oh, boy. That’s a very hard one. I hadn’t thought about it that way at all. It’s like asking for your first memory of your mother.
And she doesn’t remember how she got hooked up with Rudy Giuliani and Lin Wood, or much of anything else, really. But she’s not shy about telling you how the election was stolen!
STAFF COUNSEL: What’s your understanding of Hammer and Scorecard?
POWELL: That it’s essentially a government-instigated program that would allow for real-time monitoring of votes and the ability to predetermine the outcome of an election or run an algorithm against the votes.
STAFF COUNSEL: Where did you learn about that?
POWELL: General Mclnerney has talked about it a lot. I know Dennis Montgomery has talked about it a lot. And I eventually found the patent that I think probably covers Hammer and Scorecard that was funded by the Department of Defense back in, oh, roughly 2003 to 2005 time frame, and also the patent for the process to predetermine the result of an election.
Go on …
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Well, the conclusion that I have come to — again, I can’t tell you when it first sort of crystallized — but is that there was an algorithm in the voting machines. It may have been in every machine across the country. It may have been in select machines across the country. I don’t know. That remains to be seen. But an algorithm essentially gave weighted, for example, this is not a specific, but, for example, could weight a Biden vote at 1.25 and weight a Trump vote at 0.75. And there is a video that’s been around for a long time called “Fraction Magic” that you can find on our website probably, at defendingtherepublic.org, that explains that process, and it goes way back. So people have identified that long before I did. And then, on top of that, I think what happened election night was – and I’ve said this publicly – the turnout for Trump in person on election day was so great that it broke the algorithm in those key States. And this time they had the plan of the ground game backup of the mail-in ballots, many of which we know from the “2000 Mules” documentary were fraudulent and were ballot box stuffed to cover for the machine fraud needed. And that’s why the vote counting had to stop election night in those States and they had to backfill.
Uhhhhh …
Oh, Lord, she’s still going.
STAFF COUNSEL: And did you do that on your own, or did some expert or person with some knowledge of election security and so forth help you form that opinion in the early days after the campaign?
POWELL: I have been digging into it probably nonstop with the exception of sleeping hours and a few eating hours since election night. And one of the remarkable things I found was the testimony of Clint Curtis in 2004 before the House Judiciary Committee in Ohio about the 2000 — I think it was the 2000 or the 2004 election. Curtis is a republican who testified in front of Jerry Nadler and Maxine Waters and whoever else was on that special House Committee that sat in special seating in Ohio, that he had been hired by the Republican head of the Senate I think, or the House, in Florida to write an algorithm to change votes for Bush in the 2004 election in Florida.
And, you know, everybody listening to it then was absolutely flabbergasted, but he said he did it. And the company he worked for on top of all that had a relationship to China, and had had a Chinese spy working for it. So, you know, then I look at Smartmatic and it goes back to being founded in Venezuela in 1977 by three Venezuelans that come out of nowhere, and then all of the sudden have a multimillion dollar contact with Venezuela to literally rig elections in Venezuela. They did it for Chavez.
Oh stewardess, I speak loon. She’s saying that the Defense Department has patented an algorithm that’s in ALL THE MACHINES so that they can manipulate election results. But Donald Trump’s bigly margin of victory overwhelmed the algorithm, so the cheaters had to feed in millions more fraudulent ballots under cover of darkness to “backfill” the shortfall and ensure Biden’s victory. As for that stuff about a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Ohio … no, just no.
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Now, you may be wondering how this fraud wasn’t immediately discovered in the hand recount. And the answer is that Sidney “saw a report to that effect somewhere” that the machines in Fulton County, Georgia, were kicking out 94 percent of all ballots cast so they could be adjudicated by a county election official who was IN ON IT.
POWELL: And, if the machine kicks the vote out, then it goes into what’s called an adjudication file, where somebody else decides what the vote’s going to be. And my understanding from one of the reports I read – and I don’t remember which one –was that the adjudication rate for Fulton County was, like, 94 percent. There should never be an adjudication rate, frankly, of more than 1 percent. That should’ve rendered Fulton County just – that should’ve rendered the Georgia results, frankly, invalid.
STAFF COUNSEL: So, based on this information that you’re referring to, your understanding is that 94 percent, almost all of the votes in Fulton County were sent to adjudication, and some individual had to decide who that vote should be for?
POWELL: Exactly.
STAFF COUNSEL: And what’s your understanding as to who did that? Which individual was adjudicating 94 percent of the ballots in Fulton County?
POWELL: I do not know.
Not convinced? Watch this then.
So far, so batshit. But since this is a legal website, let’s skip to the fun part where the committee asks about Powell’s fundraising for her legal efforts to overturn the results of an election which her candidate lost by more than 7 million votes. If you want to follow along with the fun, skip to PDF page 110 where Powell denies having anything to do with Publix heiress Julie Fancelli, who contributed $3 million to the pre-riot rally on January 6, only to be confronted with a $100,000 check from the Julia Fancelli Living Trust made out to Sidney Powell, PC.
STAFF COUNSEL: But if you look on the memo line, it says: Contribution Defending the Republic Election Integrity Fund.
POWELL: Yes.
STAFF COUNSEL: Can you explain what that entity is and how it’s separate from Sidney Powell, PC?
POWELL: It wasn’t – Defending the Republic Election Integrity Fund was not a separate entity. It was an account I set up at Morgan Stanley equivalent to a client trust fund for anybody that wanted to donate to helping fund the election efforts, to make it to my PC, but to segregate it into that trust fund.
STAFF COUNSEL: And sitting here, do you know what that $100,000 was for given that it was made to the PC or given the memo for the contribution?
POWELL: I mean, my understanding is was that it was for us to fund whatever we needed to do in our work on figuring out what happened in the election.
STAFF COUNSEL: And where did you get that understanding from or who did you get that understanding from?
POWELL: Well, I mean, just the fact that it says Defending the Republic Election Integrity Fund.
STAFF COUNSEL: So just from the name?
POWELL: Yes.
Powell went on to admit that it wasn’t a PAC or a 501(c)4, although she did solicit funds as if it was the latter. In fact the pot of money was just an account at Morgan Stanley which she identified in her own mind as being set aside to fund election litigation.
STAFF COUNSEL: So there was public reporting that in November 2020 you established something called the Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic, and that was alleged to be a 501(c) (4) nonprofit. Is that true? Do you remember that?
POWELL: Yeah. That’s where the real cluster comes in, okay?
STAFF COUNSEL: Talk me through that.
POWELL: Yeah. A person by the name of Robert Matheson, I understood,
volunteered to help me set up Defending the Republic. Instead of setting up Defending the Republic, he set up this LD something. And when I figured all that out and that he was going to charge an exorbitant amount of money also when I thought it was all volunteer, because at that point we were all volunteers, I had a conniption fit and started pulling it all away from him as fast as I could do that. And it took some doing to get that done and made a hell of a mess in the process.
Yes, talk us through the “cluster” and the “hell of a mess” in your accounts. Nothing can go wrong here!
STAFF COUNSEL: Okay. Can you explain the differences of that for me?
POWELL: Well, the money that went into the Defending the Republic Election Integrity Fund ultimately went to Defending the Republic, Inc.
But it’s not — Defending the Republic Election Integrity Fund was not an entity.STAFF COUNSEL: It’s just the name on the account?
POWELL: Right.
STAFF COUNSEL: Okay. And then that account would make payments to Defending the Republic?
POWELL: That account, all at once, every dime that went into that account went into that account at Morgan Stanley, and then, in one fell swoop, months later, was transferred into Defending the Republic, Inc.
STAFF COUNSEL: And when you say Inc., because I believe they are both Inc., is it the (c)(4) Inc. or the PAC Inc.?
POWELL: The (c) (4). When I say Inc. I mean the (c) (4).
STAFF COUNSEL: Okay. That’s super helpful.
POWELL: Otherwise, I’ll call it the PAC.
STAFF COUNSEL: Okay. And then my understanding is the initial board of directors for the Inc. included General Flynn, Lin Wood, and I believe Patrick Byrne.
Powell went on to accuse Michael Flynn and his brother Joseph of taking advantage of a time when she was sick to quit and “pay themselves significant quote ‘moving bonuses’ end quote and spend a lot of money that didn’t need to be spent and then walked out and took all of the equipment with them while I couldn’t lift my head off the bed.”
And still her attorneys said nothing, only interceding when the committee began to ask questions about exactly how much money this “cluster” had netted Powell, at which point they finally objected that this “wasn’t really an area that was within the scope of the subpoena.”
YA THINK?
There is so, so much more, including a list of people who might be in on it, including: Rudy Giuliani, who has clients in Venezuela; “a lot of Republicans and Republican governors,” who were also relying on the crooked algorithms to ensure their reelection; Mark Meadows, whom she stopped looping in on her findings “because I wasn’t sure what was being done with it”; plus that whole “self-interested bunch” from the campaign, who distrusted her because she was a woman and walked out shortly after she started talking because they wanted to go on to careers on K street.
The interview ended with a warning from Powell that the committee should “really closely examine the intelligence community and particularly the CIA and Department of Defense for their role in all of this.”
HOOBOY.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
