Rudy Giuliani listens to Sidney Powell during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters
Credit: AP
Perhaps Sidney Powell has gone too far for even Rudy Giuliani this time.
The Trump campaign’s legal team moved to distance itself on Sunday from the firebrand conservative attorney after a tumultuous several days in which Ms Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the voting process, unspooled unsupported and complex conspiracy theories and vowed to "blow up" Georgia with a "biblical" lawsuit.
"Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity," Mr Giuliani and another lawyer for Mr Trump, Jenna Ellis, said in a statement.
There was no immediate clarification from the campaign and Ms Powell did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
The statement hints at further tumult for a legal team that has lost case after case in contested states as it works to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election.
Other than politics, how do you lose a case where large numbers of voters, far more than you need to flip Pennsylvania, are disenfranchised? Vote Observers thrown out of counting rooms. People going to vote finding out they have already voted through a fake ballot — go home!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2020
Law firms have withdrawn from cases, and in the latest blow, a federal judge dismissed on Saturday night the Trump campaign’s effort to block the certification of votes in Pennsylvania in a blistering ruling that described the arguments as "strained" and "unsupported by evidence".
The statement about Ms Powell was the latest sign of wariness over her approach even within some conservative circles. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his show last week that his team had asked Ms Powell for evidence to support her claims, but that Ms Powell had provided none.
Mr Trump himself had heralded Ms Powell’s involvement, tweeting last week that she was part of a team of "wonderful lawyers and representatives" spearheaded by Mr Giuliani.
I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020
Ms Powell made headlines with her statements at a Thursday news conference where, joined by Mr Giuliani and Ms Ellis, she incorrectly suggested that a server hosting evidence of voting irregularities was located in Germany, that voting software used by Georgia and other states was created at the direction of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that votes for President Donald Trump had probably been switched in favour of President-elect Joe Biden.
In a subsequent interview with Newsmax, she appeared to accuse Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and its Republican secretary of state of being part of a conspiracy involving a voting-system contract award that she contends harmed Mr Trump’s reelection bid.
"Georgia’s probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up and Mr Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it," she said, later adding that a lawsuit she planned to file against the state would be "biblical".
The status of that lawsuit was unclear on Sunday night.
Ms Powell, a former federal prosecutor, took over last year as the lead lawyer for Mr Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Since then, a federal judge rejected her claims of prosecutorial misconduct and has responded quizzically to some of her arguments, including her suggestion at a hearing several weeks ago that her conversations with Mr Trump about the Flynn case were privileged.
She has supported a Justice Department motion to dismiss the prosecution, a request that remains pending before US District Judge Emmet Sullivan.
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