Look Who’s Kraken: Sidney Powell Flips, Right Wing Media Catches Her
By Kevin Howley, October 22, 2023
Last Thursday, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Sidney Powell, who famously, if rather cryptically, promised to “release the Kraken” and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the 2020 election was rigged, flipped for Georgia prosecutors in the state’s election interference case. Powell’s guilty plea came one day before jury selection was set to begin. On Friday afternoon, she was followed by the little-known Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, he of the alternate electors scheme.
The twofer plea deals are the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the former president and his ragtag crew of coup plotters: including the likes of former White House Chief of Staff and firestarter, Mark Meadows, the Pence whisperer, John Eastman, and the drunk and disorderly former federal prosecutor, Rudi Giuliani.
Despite headlines dominated by the Republican civil war unfolding in real time on the floor of U.S. House, and the biblical bloodletting in the Holy Land, Powell’s plea deal was big news (sorry Ken). Unless of course, you read conservative news media, where there was precious little original reporting, and even less opinionating from the hot air crowd.
Just the Facts
Over at Breitbart, reporters just couldn’t be bothered. They simply cut and pasted an AP wire story headlined, “Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty In Deal With Prosecutors Over Efforts To Overturn Trump Loss In Georgia.” File under: Idle hands.
Under the headline “Sidney Powell Takes Plea Deal in Georgia Election Case,” the usually raucous Daily Caller offered readers an unadulterated account of Powell’s decision to flip for Georgia prosecutors. Detailing the terms of the deal, Katelynn Richardson notes: “Powell is required to write an apology letter and to testify against co-defendants in upcoming proceedings … Prosecutors recommended Powell be sentence to 12 months probation for each of the six charges against her, for a total of six years, and required to pay a $6000 fine and $2700 restitution to Georgia.”
Meanwhile, the Hot Air headline said the quiet part out loud: “WHOA: Sidney Powell Flips, Cuts a Deal in Georgia.” Reporter Ed Morrissey threw a bit of shade Powell’s way with his lead: “Sidney Powell finally delivered a real ‘Kraken on steroids’ in the 2020 election saga. Only this time, it won’t prove that the election got stolen – it will help Fani Willis build her RICO case against Donald Trump and 17 other co-defendants in Fulton County, Georgia.”
Kudos to Morrisey for delivering the painful truth to the MAGA faithful. Unsurprisingly, Trump loyalists continue to double down on the election denialism.
The “Chilling and Simple” Reality
100% Fed Up’s take on Powell’s plea deal is a case in point. The one-name scribe, Noah, cried an ocean of tears. “This is extremely troubling … I’m not sure we have a country anymore folks. We have a two-tiered system of justice. A system of ‘Lawfare’ … where the ruling Elites threaten to destroy anyone and their families and their lives who dare speak out against the machine. They deployed that Lawfare Machine against Sidney Powell and it looks like she has taken a plea deal.”
Channeling his favorite despot, Noah comes to a painful realization, asking, “Will she now ‘turn on’ President Trump? It seems inevitable, but we will see. So sad.”
For its part, American Wire had no time for tears. Instead, there was a sober assessment of Powell’s decision to flip. “In a stunning blow to Donald Trump, Powell has agreed to testify against the former president and her other co-defendants should she be called upon to do so. … It’s a shocking 180 from the woman who, in 2020, declared, ‘President Trump won by a landslide’ and vowed, ‘We are going to prove it.’”
The story includes extended comments from Molly McCann Sanders, one of Powell’s former attorneys. Posting to X, Sanders lit into Georgia prosecutors and the “coercive power of the state,” adding, “Juries in these Democratic strongholds convict political opponents. It’s that chilling and simple.”
Newsmax took a different tack, giving Powell’s plea deal a both sides now spin. “Law professor Jonathan Turley says attorney Sidney Powell could wind up being a ‘dangerous witness’ for both sides after her plea deal to six misdemeanors regarding efforts to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.”
Wishful thinking, perhaps, but for The Federalist, Powell’s plea deal is emblematic of the conspiracy-addled conservative mindset. Headlined, “Sidney Powell’s Plea Proves Fulton County Prosecutor Went Nuclear To Get Trump,” Margot Cleveland’s column trots down the well-worn weaponization of government path, before throwing Powell a bone. “With a jury culled from deep-blue Fulton County, the risk of a conviction on even one of the felony counts, and the consequential loss of her law license, would be too great of a chance for any defendant to take.”
For some Trump loyalists, Powell gets a pass – for now. We’ll find out this week if Chesebro is so lucky.
Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. He is the author and editor of several books including Media Interventions and Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.
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Sidney “release the Kraken” Powell’s plea deal was big news last week unless you read conservative news media, where there was precious little original reporting, and even less opinionating from the hot air crowd.
