1y ago

“I Need Six to Eight Pardons”: Sidney Powell’s Secret Scheme to “Find” Trump’s Votes

www.vanityfair.com

Even Rudy Giuliani thought her plan to seek blanket immunity, before breaching Georgia voting machines, was “over the top,” according to a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.

As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.

“I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.

According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.

32 comments

How can it be more clear that they actively tries or overturn the election?
The writing is no longer on the wall; it's a giant, flashing neon sign in your living room.
- It can't be more clear. The question you should be asking is "why do some people not care?".
  
  I think why they do not care is because they don't "believe" it. The more important question (IMO) is: "How can they deny this blatant reality?"
  The answer is because they shield themselves from reality with Olympics level mental gymnastics, rationalizing away cognitive dissonance and living in their own deluded reality.
  
  I think they believe the Dems are cheating, so that justifies them cheating as well.
  
  Because they stand to gain from it. (Or think they do.)
Wait, Rudy was the voice of reason here? Did they mistakenly ask him while he was sober or something?
- Your comment is so out of touch and ridiculous.....
  Rudy is never sober!
- He ate a weird fly that day
- Could bei Rudy ust felt that pardons were unnecessary because no one would prosecute them.
Thought this title was going to lead to an Onion article. I should know better by now.
- The fact that reality has been indistinguishable from The Onion since 2016 is the best argument for reality being a simulation. The admins decided to ramp up the satire levels. Then in 2020, they decided to leave satire turned up, but to also crank up suffering.
  Just to be clear, I am only being sarcastic. I think..
Presidential pardons just shouldn't be a thing at all. A would-be dictator should never be given that power to shield his underlings from the law.
- But what will happen to all those Turkeys sentenced to death by the White House?
  
  Guess we'll have to eat them.
She’s criminal, but she’s one of a kind and I have nostalgia for her chutzpah.
She knew there's no such thing as a secret pardon, right?
- Doesn't have to be secret, but there would be state law violations here that the President can't pardon away.
- There actually isn't a requirement that pardons be announced until they get someone out of the consequences. Trump could have pardoned himself for any federal crime, and just left the document in a drawer somewhere to be used later.
  The question of constitutionality has never been tested, so maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. As others have noted, it wouldn't work at all for state crimes. But as a concept, "secret" pardons are conceivably possible and potentially valid. We just never had a criminal so brazen in the White House that anyone thought of it before.
  
  Trump could not have pardoned himself because pardoning is not a thing people can do to themselves. Don't normalize the idea that it is.
  Imagine people saying "I pardon myself" after bumping into you on the street. That's the level of absurdity we're at.
INNOCENT people ask for Pardons!
https://archive.is/eRATL

32 comments