Trump asked ‘Kraken’ conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell to be a special counsel, she confirms to Jan 6 committee

Powell floated bizarre conspiracies about Venezuela and voting machines

Sidney Powell’s testimony is played by the Jan 6 committee (Getty Images)

Donald Trump personally tapped conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell to be a “special counsel” working in the White House to investigate his allegations of voter and election fraud, though he never went through with her appointment, Ms Powell testified to the Jan 6 committee on Thursday.

The former Trump attorney’s testimony to the Jan 6 committee was one of several pieces of witness testimony revealed publicly for the first time by the select committee at the hearing.

“On Friday, he had asked me to be a special counsel to address the election issues,” she told the lawmakers.

Mr Trump’s offer had been previously reported by The New York Times in December of 2020, just a few weeks before the January 6 riot, but never confirmed publicly by either the president or Ms Powell before now.

The attorney was one of the most vocal adherents of rumours and nonsense conspiracies regarding the 2020 election. She was eventually cut off from the rest of the president’s legal team and disavowed by Mr Trump’s aides after her claims grew too wild for even the Trump campaign to handle.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” the head of Mr Trump’s legal team after the election, Rudy Giuliani, said in late November. “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”

Her wild claims about Dominion voting machines in particular led to her eventual targeting with a defamation suit by the company after she falsely alleged that its machines "were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chávez" and supposedly used to flip thousands of votes from Mr Trump to Joe Biden.