Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell reportedly fell for 'far-fetched' QAnon conspiracy theory that claimed then-CIA director was in German custody
After the 2020 election, ex-Trump attorney and adviser Sidney Powell reportedly tried to enlist a Department of Defense official to help retrieve then-CIA Director Gina Haspel from what Powell believed to be a secret, election-related mission in Germany, ABC News reports, according to journalist Jonathan Karl's new book, Betrayal: Inside the Final Act of the Trump Show. The mission, which was not real, became one of the "most far-fetched claims about the election."
According to Karl, Powell called the senior intelligence official, Ezra Cohen, in the election's aftermath, pushing a "false conspiracy theory that had been gaining steam among QAnon followers."
"Gina Haspel has been hurt and taken into custody in Germany," Powell told Cohen, per Karl. "You need to launch a special operations mission to get her."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Trump attorney believed Haspel had been injured while completing a secret CIA operation aiming to seize and destroy evidence of vote tampering on an election-related computer server, Karl reports. She thought the CIA was complicit. None of it was true.
But Powell believed it, and wanted the Defense Department to immediately "send a special operations team over to Germany," locate the server, and "force Haspel to confess," Karl writes.
Cohen, for his part, "thought Powell sounded out of her mind," and soon reported the call up the chain, according to Karl.
A CIA spokesperson later further debunked any conspiracies, having told news outlets, "I'm happy to tell you that Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office."
-
5 hilariously chilling cartoons about Trump’s plan to invade GreenlandCartoons Artists take on misdirection, the need for Greenland, and more
-
Iran in flames: will the regime be toppled?In Depth The moral case for removing the ayatollahs is clear, but what a post-regime Iran would look like is anything but
-
‘The economics of WhatsApp have been mysterious for years’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump threatens Minnesota with Insurrection ActSpeed Read The law was passed in 1807 but has rarely been used
-
Why is Trump threatening defense firms?Talking Points CEO pay and stock buybacks will be restricted
-
‘The security implications are harder still to dismiss’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Judge clears wind farm construction to resumeSpeed Read The Trump administration had ordered the farm shuttered in December over national security issues
-
Trump DOJ targets Fed’s Powell, drawing pushbackSpeed Read Powell called the investigation ‘unprecedented’
-
What are Donald Trump’s options in Iran?Today's Big Question Military strikes? Regime overthrow? Cyberattacks? Sanctions? How can the US help Iranian protesters?
-
Maduro’s capture: two hours that shook the worldTalking Point Evoking memories of the US assault on Panama in 1989, the manoeuvre is being described as the fastest regime change in history
-
Trump’s power grab: the start of a new world order?Talking Point Following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the US president has shown that arguably power, not ‘international law’, is the ultimate guarantor of security
