Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney to President Donald Trump, again sought to distance himself, the president, and the president’s legal team from attorney Sidney Powell after Powell had repeatedly appeared at the White House in recent days.
“Let me say definitely, Sidney Powell was not part of our legal team,” Giuliani said. “She hasn’t been for five weeks. She is not a special counsel for the president; she does not speak for the president, nor does she speak for the administration. She speaks for herself.”
Giuliani went on to add that “whatever she is talking about, it’s her own opinions. … I’m not responsible for them, the president isn’t, nor is anybody else on our legal team.”
The news comes as Powell met with the president for the third time in four days, despite the president previously parting ways with her last month after she made unproven claims that were “too crazy” for the president.
The New York Times reported:
The meeting came as Sidney Powell, a lawyer and election conspiracy theorist whom the Trump campaign parted ways with weeks ago, showed up at the White House for a third time in four days. Ms. Powell, who has repeatedly claimed she has evidence of widespread fraud without providing any proof, had been seriously considered by Mr. Trump this weekend as a special counsel serving in the White House and investigating election fraud.
Ms. Powell met briefly with Mr. Trump, a person briefed on their discussion said.
In November, the Trump campaign’s legal team issued a statement separating themselves from Powell.
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”
Powell has widely been criticized by even the president’s biggest and most prominent supporters, including Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh.
During a segment on Carlson’s show last month, Carlson highlighted the following quote from Powell:
One of its most characteristic features is its ability to flip votes. It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system, and that’s what caused them to have to shut down in the states they shut down in.
“So we invited Sidney Powell on this show. We would’ve given her the whole hour; we would’ve given her the entire week actually and listened quietly the whole time at rapt attention — that’s a big story,” Carlson said. “But she never sent us any evidence despite a lot of requests, polite requests, not a page. When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given them any evidence either, nor did she provided any today at the press conference.”
Limbaugh also criticized Powell late last month after the Trump legal team tried to claim that she was not a part of their team.
“It’s a tough thing to deny she was ever a part of it because they introduced her as part of it,” Limbaugh said. “She was at that press conference last week.”
Limbaugh then moved on to addressing the substance of the press conference, saying, “You call a gigantic press conference like that, one that lasts an hour and you announce massive bombshells, then you better have some bombshells, there better be something at that press conference other than what we got.”
“But you don’t — you can’t — I talked to so many people who were blown away by it, by the very nature of the press conference,” Limbaugh continued. “They promised blockbuster stuff, and then nothing happened. And that’s just, that’s not — well, it’s not good.”
“If you’re going to promise blockbuster stuff like that, then there has — now, I understand,” Limbaugh added. “Look, I’m the one that’s been telling everybody, this stuff doesn’t happen at warp speed, light speed, the way cases are made for presentation in court. But if you’re going to do a press conference like that, with the promise of blockbusters, then — then there has to be something more than what that press conference delivered.”