Georgia official begged by Trump to ‘find’ votes mocks Sidney Powell: ‘Kraken cracks under pressure’

Raffensperger said Powell ‘admitted that her effort to make millions lying to American people had no facts to begin with’

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger slammed former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for filing a motion to dismiss a $1.3bn lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems through her lawyers.

In a press release entitled "The Kraken cracks under pressure," Mr Raffensperger said on Tuesday that “in the face of legal action, Sidney Powell admitted that her effort to make millions lying to the American people had no facts to begin with".

He added: “While the loss of the Senate due to her lies will have ramifications for years, I most sympathize with those who believed her in the first place and who she now considers not reasonable enough to realize she should not have been taken seriously.”

Sidney Powell’s lawyers said in a federal court filing on Monday that “assuming, [for the sake of the argument], that each of the statements alleged in the Complaint could be proved true or false, no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact," in response to the lawsuit by Dominion in DC District Court.

In a statement to The Independent, Howard Kleinhandler, counsel for Ms Powell, said: “Any suggestion that ‘no reasonable person’ would believe Ms Powell or her comments on the election is false. The language... is a legal standard adopted by the courts to determine whether statements qualify as opinions which are exempt from defamation liability.”

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He added: “Ms Powell is not backing down or retracting her previous statements concerning Dominion. Dominion’s case lacks legal merit and should be dismissed in its entirety.”

The press release from Mr Raffensperger said that Ms Powell “does not consider those who believe her voter fraud claims 'reasonable.'"

The defamation suit Dominion brought against Ms Powell said that her conspiracy theories claiming that the company helped Joe Biden win and stole the election from Donald Trump amounted to "actual malice".

She filed a number of lawsuits after the election trying to overturn the results by claiming they were rigged by Dominion and saying she would "release the Kraken" to reveal the nonexistent fraud.

Dominion provides voting systems to 28 states and no evidence that they have committed any kind of fraud has been found. The company writes on its site: "Malicious and misleading false claims about Dominion have resulted in dangerous levels of threats and harassment against the company and its employees, as well as election officials."

The press release from Mr Raffensperger concluded: "Finally, Powell and her lawyers admit that her claims about voter fraud, stolen elections, or switched votes were 'her opinions and legal theories' only."

Ms Powell's lawyers wrote in the 54 pages long motion to dismiss on Monday that "given the highly charged and political context of the statements, it is clear that Powell was describing the facts on which she based the lawsuits she filed in support of President Trump".

They added that Dominion "themselves characterize the statements at issue as 'wild accusations' and 'outlandish claims.' They are repeatedly labelled 'inherently improbable' and even 'impossible.' Such characterizations of the allegedly defamatory statements further support Defendants' position that reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims that await testing by the courts through the adversary process".

In response to the motion, Michigan Republican Representative Peter Meijer tweeted: "Absolutely infuriating. GOP lost the Senate [and] 5 [people] died in [the] attack on the Capitol in part [because] Sidney Powell misled millions claiming stolen elections. Now Powell backtracks saying 'no reasonable person' [would] believe what she *ALLEGED IN COURT* were 'statements of fact'!?! Pathetic."