Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's election fraud source is a woman who gets messages "from the wind"

Fox News put her on anyway

Anyone following Sidney Powells’ election-denial legal strategy knows she is nuts. Yet even the most dedicated newshound will still be surprised at the width and depth of her lunacy. MSNBC’s Alex Wagner broached the subject with New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters during a piece on Fox News' fantastical election fraud coverage.

Peters was reporting on the publicly available parts of Dominion Voting Systems brief, arguing that Fox News knowingly aired claims they knew to be lies. Part of his report dealt with Trump’s ‘star’ election lawyer Sidney Powell’s source for the claims of election rigging she dumped on Fox.    

“The evidence that Sidney Powell had, that she presented to Fox News producers and hosts, was an email from a woman who is delusional — who said she could hear the wind speaking to her. And that she had been killed in a prior life.

They had this in their hands and they put Sidney Powell on the air anyway as a woman who was the voice of the Trump administration, saying this is why she believed the election has been stolen through Dominion machines.”

For listeners who might have missed what Peters said — or who thought they were listening to a parody, Alex Wagner expanded,

“For people who haven’t read the brief yet, Powell's source also explained that she gets her information from something “like time travel in a semi-conscious state,” allowing her to “see what others don't see and hear what others don’t hear,” and she recovered messages from “the wind.”

Fox News has to be nervous. They know they cannot win the case on the merits, so they have fallen back on a specious free speech defense. In a statement, the company’s lawyers did their best:

"There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan."

This pablum is the usual conservative misdirection (aka noise and confusion) they use to defend themselves against defamation suits. (As well as to argue that social media is constitutionally bound to post their lies, hate, and denials.) The First Amendment restrains the government and not private concerns. An organization — even if pretends to be in the news business — is not free to say whatever it wants about a company to smear it.

The law grants the media some protections. In the case Fox mentions, NYT vs. Sullivan, the Supreme Court ruled that a public official has to prove "actual malice".

The Cornell Law School spells it out:

The Sullivan court stated that "actual malice" means that the defendant said the defamatory statement "with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Sullivan court also held that when the standard is actual malice, the plaintiff must prove actual malice by "clear and convincing" evidence, rather than the usual burden of proof in a civil case, which is the preponderance of the evidence standard.

However, this standard does not apply as Dominion is not a government entity. Although lawyers for pillow salesman, Mike Lindell, argue that it is — as the company was performing a government function. The courts will sort that out. Not that it will likely matter. Internal emails and texts show that the management of Fox News and its prime-time propagandists were well aware that they were shit-slinging and running scared of Trump. And that the malice was actual.

As Forbes reports under the heading KEY FACTS

• Host Tucker Carlson said in text messages that far-right attorney Sidney Powell “is lying” and called her claims “insane” and “absurd,” saying it was “shockingly reckless” to push the Dominion fraud claims and Powell was “poison,” an “unguided missile” and “dangerous as hell” and he “hope[s] she’s punished.”

• Carlson also wrote after the January 6 attack that Trump is “a demonic force, a destroyer,” and told host Laura Ingraham he “had to make” the Trump White House “disavow” Powell’s comments, calling her a “nut.”

• Host Sean Hannity testified he “did not believe … for one second” that Powell’s voter fraud claims were true and it was “obvious” Powell’s allegations were false when she appeared on his program, also saying far-right attorney Rudy Giuliani was “acting like an insane person” and calling the lawyers “f’ing lunatics.”

• Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott also testified she “had a number of conversations with [Hannity] where he wanted the President to accept the results” and said he had believed President Joe Biden had lawfully won the election “for some time.”

• Ingraham called Powell a “complete nut” and added “ditto with Rudy [Giuliani],” telling Carlson that “no serious lawyer could believe what they were saying” and calling Giuliani “such an idiot.”

• Fox host Lou Dobbs, who repeatedly hosted Powell on his program, agreed under oath that it was “false” to say that Powell revealed evidence of voter fraud on his show, and Dominion alleges that no Fox witness has testified there’s any evidence of voter fraud involving Dominion machines.

• Powell’s evidence for her voter fraud claims was based on an email from someone who claimed to be “internally decapitated” and said, “the wind tells me I’m a ghost, but I don’t believe it”—a message that Fox host Maria Bartiromo acknowledged under oath was “nonsense” and “kooky,” but she still put Powell and her claims on her program anyway.

• Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch called Giuliani’s allegations “really crazy stuff” and “damaging,” said he should be taken “with a large grain of salt” and called the fact he was advising Trump “really bad.”

• Fox Corporation Executive Raj Shah called the voter fraud claims “mind-blowingly nuts” and said in a text message to Carlson’s producer Alex Pfeiffer, “So many people openly denying the obvious that Powell is clearly full of it,” to which Pfeiffer responded that Powell is a “f–king nutcase.”

• Fox host Dana Perino described the Dominion fraud allegations in texts and emails as “total bs,” “insane” and “nonsense,” writing, “Where the hell did they even get this Venezuela tie to Dominion? I mean wtf.”

• Fox host Brett Baier said on November 5, “There is NO evidence of fraud. None.

We have yet to hear any court testimony on Dominion's claim — perhaps we never will. Fox News must hope they can settle out of court. Because while I am no lawyer, this seems like a clear-cut case of defamation — no matter what legal standard you apply.

And Sidney Powell needs help.