WASHINGTON, Nov 23 — US President Donald Trump's election campaign issued a statement yesterday distancing itself from Sidney Powell, a lawyer who made baseless allegations of voter fraud at a news conference on Thursday.
“Sidney Powell is practising law on her own,” Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in the statement. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team.”
The announcement was made a day after a judge dismissed the campaign's lawsuit seeking to halt President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania, dealing a major blow to Trump's flailing efforts to overturn his November 3 election loss.
Powell, a conservative activist and former federal prosecutor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump had referred to Powell as one of his lawyers in a November 14 tweet.
“Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives,” Trump said in the tweet.
Powell, without providing evidence, said last week that electronic voting systems had switched millions of ballots to favour Biden.
Tucker Carlson, an influential Fox News host, on Thursday criticised Powell for a lack of evidence to support her claims.
“She never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one,” Carlson said.
US Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa who won reelection in this month's vote, told a Fox News radio programme on Thursday that Powell's allegations were “offensive.”
Powell is currently representing Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his effort to end a long-running criminal case against him.
Democrats and some Republicans have accused Trump of trying to undermine faith in the American electoral system and delegitimize Biden’s victory by promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud. — Reuters
