TRUMP CAMPAIGN PARTS WAYS WITH SIDNEY POWELL

President Donald Trump’s election campaign distanced itself from Sidney Powell, a lawyer who claimed without evidence at a news conference last week that electronic voting systems had switched millions of ballots to President-elect Joe Biden, Jan Wolfe reported for Reuters.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team.” The announcement came a day after a federal judge dismissed the campaign’s lawsuit seeking to halt Pennsylvania officials from certifying Biden’s victory in the state, dealing a major blow to Trump’s flailing efforts to overturn his Nov. 3 election loss. Trump expressed concerns that Powell’s claims were too outlandish and would distract from other legal arguments, a person familiar with the discussions said.

Powell had made other dramatic claims without evidence, saying she had a voter fraud case of “biblical” proportions in Georgia. On Saturday, she told conservative Newsmax TV that “Georgia is probably going to be the first state I’m gonna blow up,” and accused Republican Governor Brian Kemp of conspiring against Trump.

A conservative activist and former federal prosecutor, Powell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She is representing Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his effort to end a long-running criminal case against him.