Sidney Powell, a former attorney of Donald Trump, is suing to block Verizon from releasing her phone records to the committee investigating the protests at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Powell filed the lawsuit in Dallas, where her legal office is located. She is a practicing member of the State Bar of Texas.
In January 2022, the Select House Committee investigating the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, issued subpoenas to multiple close allies of former President Trump, including his former attorney Sidney Powell.
The group that was subpoenaed “advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn the election results, or were in direct contact with the former President about attempts to stop the counting of electoral votes,” according to committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS).
“We expect these individuals to join the nearly 400 witnesses who have spoken with the Select Committee as the committee works to get answers for the American people about the violent attack on our democracy,” Thompson said in a statement.
On February 4, the committee issued a subpoena to Verizon, asking the wireless network operator to turn over Powell’s phone records around January 6, 2021.
Sidney Powell and her lawyer assert that Verizon should not comply with the subpoena and provide the records for several reasons.
“Ms. Powell had no involvement in the events of January 6, yet the DOJ is seeking records that contain attorney-client privileges held by numerous clients,” Sidney Powell’s lawyer, Bob Holmes, wrote in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further requests that the court negate the subpoena and rule it illegal, as it would cause “irreparable harm” to Powell.
The lawsuit refers to the Select Committee as an “inquisitorial tribunal” that “has not demonstrated a ‘valid legislative purpose’ justifying its need for a subpoena of private citizen data.”
“Simply put, no governmental interest could be sufficiently important to permit it to delve through every phone call placed or received by Plaintiff over a three-month period,” the lawsuit continues.
The lawsuit also claims that the subpoena of Verizon violates the Stored Communications Act. The act states that an electronic service provider “shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage to that service.”
Powell’s lawsuit contends that the subpoena is unenforceable because it constitutes an unlawful search and seizure and violates the Fourth Amendment.
The attorney had gained notoriety for her support of Trump and her defense of his claims that he won the election. Powell said she had a trove of documents that proved the 2020 election was stolen and memorably promised to “release the Kraken.”
Powell filed a series of lawsuits in battleground states seeking to challenge Biden’s win, force recounts, or get state legislators to declare Trump victories. However, all the cases were unsuccessful. A federal judge ruled that Sidney Powell and other pro-Trump lawyers would pay the defendants’ attorney fees in Michigan. The judge also ordered the lawyers to take a course on election law and undergo a review by their state bar associations.
She was also hit with a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. The company sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines, to the United States. Dominion accused Sidney Powell of promoting what the company claims are conspiracy theories about Dominion. One such theory claimed Dominion helped throw the election in favor of Biden.
Powell’s attorneys have claimed she did not defame Dominion, stating that many of her claims were from affidavits she had no reason to doubt.
The attorney was only briefly an official member of Trump’s legal team. She was officially named to the legal team on November 14, 2020. During a November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters with lead Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Powell was incredibly steadfast in her position that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election.
“We are not going to back down. We are going to clean this mess up now,” Powell said. “President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it, and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.”
Three days later, Giuliani announced that Powell was no longer an official member of Trump’s legal team, after which she continued filing the series of lawsuits independently.