Semantics.
What’s the strategy in that? Claiming she was never his attorney forfeits what shreds of privilege might be left of their communications and is also one less person he can blame “advice of counsel” on.
Nothing really counts anyway as I’m betting nearly all of their discussions involved crimes, which aren’t protected by attorney client privilege.
It’s funny though, trump acting like there isn’t record of their relationship.
Minor correction: Admitting you committed a crime in the past is protected. The attorney can still tiptoe around the fact that they know you committed it, by defending you on procedural or clerical grounds. For instance, they can attack the evidence that has been submitted against you, because it was mishandled, or because the equipment used to gather it hadn’t been calibrated recently enough, or for any number of reasons. Even if they know you committed the crime, they can still ensure that your court proceedings are fair.
Admitting that you plan on committing future crimes is not covered. The attorney can’t be party to future crimes, and admitting you plan on committing crimes makes them a co-conspirator if they don’t rat you out.
But if the attorney is party to the crimes then the discussion is not privileged (to my understanding).
Was mostly gone when she signed the plea deal. Crime-Fraud Exemption kicks in.
While I agree that he’s an idiot, I tend to think his disavowal has more to do with his malignant narcissism: he can’t accept being associated with people who others view as weak, and in his view taking a guilty plea means you’re weak. In his mind, saying he knows her and hired her means admitting he made a bad judgment call, and that’s simply not something he’s capable of admitting (even to himself.)
He’s going to just say she’s fabricating everything. Probably will start insulting her about irrelevant things soon too.
Because his legal defense wasn’t based on claiming attorney-client; it was based on the idea that he was just asking legal hypotheticals to / legal advice from legal experts
Now two of these lawyers have taken plea deals to (presumably) testify against Trump. Also, by virtue of the guilty plea in this case where Trump is a codefendant, that privilege would likely be voided anyway
Sidney Powell was one of millions and millions of people who thought, and in ever increasing numbers still think, correctly, that the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLLEN, AND OUR COUNTRY IS BEING ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED BECAUSE OF IT!!! MS. POWELL WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS. In fact, she would have been conflicted,
That was a challenging first sentence to read.
I’ll DM you the audio recording from my last exceedingly challenging bowl movement. That will be a close approximation of the real thing.
Moreover, Trump himself on Nov. 14th, 2020, identified Powell as being part of his legal team by tweeting, “I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!”‘
Step 1 - “She was never my attorney.”
Step 2 - “All our conversations are confidential attorney/client privelege.”
Yeah, she just pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy with him. That confession alone voids attorney/client privilege.
Ah so it’s more like:
Step 1: attorney/client privilege no longer applies due to guilty plea.
Step 2: disown
I can’t see how it’d help him, though. She was in the meetings. She has (or at least had) the texts and emails. Her testimony could crucify Trump in court. Which would be fitting considering that the MAGA folks seem to think he’s the second coming.
Also, if she gives prosecutors a hard time and fails to turn over evidence or testify honestly, she could end up screwing up her bargain and be worse off than before.
When he finally ends up in prison where he belongs, he’ll claim he was never Donald Trump.
