By Jason Lemon
Attorney Sidney Powell, who filed baseless 2020 election challenges on behalf of former President Donald Trump, insisted on Saturday that the Republican politician “can simply be reinstated”—continuing to promote conspiracy theories and misinformation about President Joe Biden‘s victory.
Powell made the remarks during the “For God & Country Patriot Roundup” conference in Dallas this weekend. Also speaking at the event was retired general Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security who has also repeatedly pushed false claims about the 2020 election.
“He can simply be reinstated,” Powell said of Trump during the conference. The crowd cheered loudly in response to her groundless claims.
“And Biden is told to move out of the White House,” the lawyer continued with a smirk on her face. “And President Trump should be moved back in. I’m sure there’s not going to be credit for time lost, unfortunately. Because the Constitution itself sets the date for inauguration. But he should definitely get the remainder of his term and make the best of it. That’s for sure,” Powell insisted.
Powell also suggested that Trump could have fought harder to stay in office. “He had all the tools he needed,” she said. “From the day after the election, everyone else around him at the White House was telling him to just pack it up and go home.”
In the wake of Trump’s election loss in November, the former president initially solicited the legal aid of Powell to formally represent his campaign in court challenges to the results. However, after the attorney was widely mocked for her bizarre and often illogical claims, the then president said publicly that she was not officially part of his legal team. Powell continued to file election challenges independently, including the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits in key battleground states.
Powell’s lawsuits, as well as dozens of others filed by Trump and his allies, failed in state and federal courts. Even judges appointed by Trump and other Republicans rejected the allegations. Meanwhile, multiple ballot recounts and audits in key battleground states—including in places where the election was overseen by Republicans who supported Trump—have reaffirmed Biden’s election win.
Former Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as one of Trump’s most loyal Cabinet members, asserted in December that there was “no evidence” of fraud that would impact the election’s outcome. Prior to that, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security described the 2020 election as the “most secure in American history.” The federal agency, which was led by a Trump appointee at the time, said there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
But Trump, Powell, Flynn and other allies of the former president continue to promote baseless claims about the 2020 election. These groundless allegations have added fuel to the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory. Adherents to QAnon believe that the country is largely run and controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophile Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites. They believe that Trump has somehow been working to challenge and destroy their organization.
A poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly a quarter (23 percent) of Republicans agreed with the statement, “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.” Furthermore, 28 percent of Republicans said they believe that “true American patriots” may need to resort to violence to save the U.S. because it has gone so off track.
“Our country needs to turn around,” Brenda Bintz, a retired nurse from New Jersey who attended the weekend conference featuring Powell and Flynn, told The Dallas Morning News. “We’ve turned our back on God.”
Powell is facing a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over her false claims about the company’s alleged involvement in a plot to rig the election for Biden. In response to the lawsuit, Powell’s attorneys said in a March court filing related to the defamation lawsuit “that reasonable people would not accept” Powell’s statements about the 2020 election “as fact.”
Newsweek reached out to Powell for further comment.
