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Fact Sheets Published October 22, 2024

Backgrounder: Sidney Powell’s disciplinary hearing

Powell, a Texas-based attorney, pled guilty in Georgia to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. On Oct. 25, 2024, the Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals will hear arguments and determine whether to professionally discipline Powell due to her crimes.

Issue Areas
  • Accountability
In This Resource
Introduction

On Aug. 14, 2023, attorney Sidney Powell and 18 others were charged in Fulton County, Georgia, with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election. On Oct. 19, 2023, Powell pled guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties (O.C.G.A. 16-4-8—and 21-2-597) arising out of a plot to unlawfully obtain access to voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia.

Per the indictment, Powell was a key figure in that conspiracy, engaging in illegal efforts to access voting equipment in Georgia and elsewhere. She hired and directed the technology firm SullivanStrickler to unlawfully access Coffee County, Georgia’s sensitive voting equipment and confidential voting technology. At Powell’s direction, SullivanStrickler and others involved in the conspiracy “stole data, including ballot images, voting equipment software, and personal voter information. The stolen data was then distributed to other enterprise members, including members in other states.”

Under the plea agreement’s terms, Powell is subject to six years of probation (12 months for each count), a $6,000 fine, and $2,700 of restitution. She was further required to testify truthfully against her co-defendants and write a formal apology for her actions—a condition she met with a one-sentence letter.

Guilty plea

On Oct. 19, 2023, Powell pled guilty to six counts of Conspiracy to Commit Intentional Interference with the Performance of Election Duties between Dec. 1, 2020 and Jan. 7, 2021. Specifically, she pled guilty to unlawfully conspiring to intentionally interfere with, hinder, and delay co-defendant Misty Hampton—then the elections director for Coffee County, Georgia—in the performance of her duties under Georgia’s Election Code by contracting with, paying, and causing the employees of the firm SullivanStrickler LLC to travel from Fulton County, Georgia, to Coffee County, Georgia:

  1. for the purpose of willfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines (Count 1);
  2. for the purpose of causing certain members of the conspiracy, who were not officers charged by law with the care of ballots and who were not persons entrusted by any such officer with the care of ballots for the purpose required by law, to possess official ballots outside of the polling place (Count 2);
  3. for the purpose of using a computer with knowledge that such use was without authority and with the intention of taking and appropriating information, data, and software, the property of Dominion Voting Systems Corporation (Count 3);
  4. for the purpose of using a computer with knowledge that such use was without authority and with the intention of removing voter data from said computer (Count 4);
  5. for the purpose of using a computer with the intention of examining personal voter data with the knowledge that such examination was without authority (Count 5); and
  6. for the purpose of using a computer with knowledge that such use was without authority and with the intention of removing Dominion Voting Systems Corporation data from said computer (Count 6).
Compulsory discipline

The Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure, established and enforced by the Supreme Court of Texas, provide that “when an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas has been … placed on probation for an Intentional Crime with or without an adjudication of guilt, the Chief Disciplinary Counsel shall initiate a Disciplinary Action seeking compulsory discipline[.]” Tex. R. Disc. Pro. 8.01.

  • An Intentional Crime includes “any Serious Crime that requires proof of knowledge or intent as an essential element[.]” Tex. R. Disc. Pro. 1.06V(1).
    • A Serious Crime includes “any misdemeanor involving theft, embezzlement, or fraudulent or reckless misappropriation of money or other property; or any attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation of another to commit any of the foregoing crimes.” Tex. R. Disc. Pro. 1.06GG.

Each of the counts to which Powell pled guilty has an intentionality element, and at least four (Counts 2, 3, 4, and 6) involve property theft.

Rule 8.05 provides that attorneys subject to discipline under Rule 8.01 “shall be disbarred unless the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, under Rule 8.06, suspends his or her license to practice law.” Tex. R. Disc. Pro. 8.05.

On Nov. 8, 2023, the States United Democracy Center and Lawyers Defending American Democracy sent a letter to the State Bar of Texas urging the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel to seek Powell’s disbarment through a compulsory discipline proceeding. This letter was sent following Powell’s guilty plea in the Fulton County, Georgia, election interference case. The letter was signed by more than a dozen bipartisan signatories, including prominent Texas legal experts, former Republican statewide and federal officials, and the Bush and Obama White House ethics advisors.

In June 2024 (docketed July 2024), the State Bar of Texas, through its Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, filed a Petition for Compulsory Discipline with the Board of Disciplinary Appeals. The matter became public in October when the Board docketed it and set the hearing. In the Petition, the Bar alleged that “[h]aving pled guilty to one or more Intentional & Serious Crimes and having been placed on SEVENTY TWO (72) MONTHS probation, [Powell] is subject to compulsory discipline as provided in Part VIII, Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure.” Accordingly, the Bar asked the Board to impose discipline consistent with the rules.

Hearing procedures

The Bar Petition hearing is set to occur on Oct. 25.

Key filings
Resources
Press coverage