Trump reportedly considered appointing controversial lawyer Sidney Powell to lead election fraud investigation

Sidney Powell.
(Image credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Trump campaign may have distanced itself from attorney Sidney Powell in its longshot fight to overturn the presidential election results, but President Trump has another job in mind for the controversial lawyer, The New York Times reports.

During a Friday meeting at the White House, Trump discussed making Powell a special counsel investigating voter fraud, two people briefed on the discussion told the Times. The president's advisers were reportedly not fond of the idea — Powell has largely fallen out of favor even among Trump's most ardent loyalists because she's pushed baseless conspiracy theories that Trump's loss stemmed from a Venezuelan plot involving corrupted voting machines.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.