Trump ally Sidney Powell secures legal victory in Texas appeals case

Sidney Powell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, secured a legal victory in Texas on Wednesday after an appellate court ruled that the state bar had failed to prove she engaged in “fraud, dishonesty, deceit, or misconduct.” 

Powell was accused of bringing “frivolous” lawsuits in Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by alleging voter fraud. But a Texas court threw out the case last year after determining that the State Bar of Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline provided no evidence to conclude that Powell had believed the lawsuits were “frivolous” at the time.

The ruling from the Fifth District Court of Appeals on Wednesday supported the court's previous ruling, claiming that even in their second attempt to punish Powell, the state bar had failed to provide sufficient evidence that she knowingly tried to overturn the election results.

“The Bar employed a ‘scattershot’ approach to the case, which left this court and the trial court ‘with the task of sorting through the argument to determine what issue ha[d] actually been raised,'” Justice Dennise Garcia wrote in the court’s 23-page ruling. “Having done so, the absence of competent summary judgment compels our conclusion that the Bar failed to meet its summary judgment burden.”

The state bar has not publicly commented on the ruling, but a commission is expected to meet to determine its next steps, according to Reuters.

Powell is the most prominent lawyer of Trump’s inner circle to bring lawsuits against states that President Joe Biden had won four years ago. She did not see success in the lawsuits, and was sanctioned by a court in Detroit in 2021, where a judge accused her of abusing the judicial system.

The ruling comes more than six months after Powell pleaded guilty in a Georgia election interference case, related to alleged efforts by Trump and some of allies to overturn the 2020 election results. She was sentenced to six years of probation, was forced to pay a total of $8,700 in fines, and gave a promise to testify if called in Trump’s racketeering case.