Semantics.

  • @[email protected]M
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    592 years ago

    Step 1 - “She was never my attorney.”

    Step 2 - “All our conversations are confidential attorney/client privelege.”

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, she just pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy with him. That confession alone voids attorney/client privilege.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        Ah so it’s more like:

        Step 1: attorney/client privilege no longer applies due to guilty plea.

        Step 2: disown

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          I can’t see how it’d help him, though. She was in the meetings. She has (or at least had) the texts and emails. Her testimony could crucify Trump in court. Which would be fitting considering that the MAGA folks seem to think he’s the second coming.

          Also, if she gives prosecutors a hard time and fails to turn over evidence or testify honestly, she could end up screwing up her bargain and be worse off than before.

          • @[email protected]
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            42 years ago

            Her testimony could crucify Trump in court.

            I’m assuming this is what got her a plea deal, but of course I’m an internet rando and I don’t know for sure.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    82 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Former President Donald Trump claimed Sidney Powell was “never” his attorney in a social media post Sunday, three days after she pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case.

    Trump publicly announced on November 15, 2020, that he “added” Powell to his “truly great team” of lawyers working on the election.

    And she met with Trump on multiple occasions, including a December 2020 White House meeting where he considered naming her as a special counsel to look for voter fraud.

    This was the infamous meeting where there was discussion of declaring martial law and ordering the military to seize voting machines.

    In her guilty plea, Powell admitted her role in the January 2021 breach of election systems in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

    They did this after Trump declined to sign an executive order directing the Pentagon to seize voting machines.


    The original article contains 440 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • z3rOR0ne
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    542 years ago

    When he finally ends up in prison where he belongs, he’ll claim he was never Donald Trump.

  • @[email protected]
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    262 years ago

    Well, there will be more than enough signed statements and other written communication to prove the contrary, I’m sure.

  • ares35
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    212 years ago

    was never his attorney because he never paid her bills?

  • @[email protected]
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    1122 years ago

    What’s the strategy in that? Claiming she was never his attorney forfeits what shreds of privilege might be left of their communications and is also one less person he can blame “advice of counsel” on.

      • @[email protected]
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        202 years ago

        To be clear, attorney-client privilege does not exist when the client and the attorney collaborated on committing a crime.

    • TechyDad
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      152 years ago

      Bets on him claiming that she was never his lawyer and yet attorney client privilege still applies for some reason?

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Nothing really counts anyway as I’m betting nearly all of their discussions involved crimes, which aren’t protected by attorney client privilege.

      It’s funny though, trump acting like there isn’t record of their relationship.

      • @[email protected]
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        242 years ago

        Minor correction: Admitting you committed a crime in the past is protected. The attorney can still tiptoe around the fact that they know you committed it, by defending you on procedural or clerical grounds. For instance, they can attack the evidence that has been submitted against you, because it was mishandled, or because the equipment used to gather it hadn’t been calibrated recently enough, or for any number of reasons. Even if they know you committed the crime, they can still ensure that your court proceedings are fair.

        Admitting that you plan on committing future crimes is not covered. The attorney can’t be party to future crimes, and admitting you plan on committing crimes makes them a co-conspirator if they don’t rat you out.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          But if the attorney is party to the crimes then the discussion is not privileged (to my understanding).

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            Read my second paragraph, because I covered that already. The attorney can’t help you plan or execute future crimes, because that makes them a co-conspirator.

            And from what I’ve read, that’s pretty much exactly what Trump tried to do. He apparently tried to use the “hypothetically if I were to commit this crime, what would be the best way to do it” method. The issue is that this is just a blatant attempt at getting around things, and courts don’t tend to like it when you try to skirt their rules.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              To be pedantic, you specifically said future crimes. A discussion between a lawyer and a client, about past crimes where the lawyer was a participant in the crime are not covered.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Because his legal defense wasn’t based on claiming attorney-client; it was based on the idea that he was just asking legal hypotheticals to / legal advice from legal experts

      Now two of these lawyers have taken plea deals to (presumably) testify against Trump. Also, by virtue of the guilty plea in this case where Trump is a codefendant, that privilege would likely be voided anyway

    • squiblet
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      142 years ago

      He’s going to just say she’s fabricating everything. Probably will start insulting her about irrelevant things soon too.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        While I agree that he’s an idiot, I tend to think his disavowal has more to do with his malignant narcissism: he can’t accept being associated with people who others view as weak, and in his view taking a guilty plea means you’re weak. In his mind, saying he knows her and hired her means admitting he made a bad judgment call, and that’s simply not something he’s capable of admitting (even to himself.)

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    This seems easy to prove ether way. I would assume some paperwork exists with her listed as his legal representative.

  • @[email protected]
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    232 years ago

    Well kids. This is why we pay our co-conspirator’s legal bills. And our own legal bills. And why we listen to advice of counsel. And why we remain loyal to those who are loyal to us.

    Oh yeah, and skipping on the crimes helps as well.

  • @[email protected]
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    422 years ago

    This is very very bad for Trump because Powell is also a defendant in Jack Smith’s federal case being tried under Judge Chutkan.

    Powell obviously knows that her guilty plea in Georgia can and will be used by Smith in the federal case, so what it basically says is that she’s going to be a cooperating witness (she really has no choice) for Smith as well.

    Powell was there at the infamous December 18th meeting wherein things like shutting down all voting and declaring martial law were allegedly discussed. This in turn means that she can provide convincing and potentially damning evidence as to Trump’s knowledge of and intent with regard to how the election had actually played out, and specifically with regard to his desire to overturn it.

    There’s a lot more to be said about this, but I have to go make dinner.

  • @[email protected]
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    582 years ago

    Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN, AND OUR COUNTRY IS BEING ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED BECAUSE OF IT!!! MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS. In fact, she would have been conflicted,

    That was a challenging first sentence to read.

  • @[email protected]
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    152 years ago

    He can’t just go one day without throwing everything under a bus can he lol. Is the only person he hasn’t his daughter (who he wants to bang) or has he done the same to her yet lol.