As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
“I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.
According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.
Nevertheless, Giuliani, Powell, and other Trump allies would work to seize Dominion voting machines in an illicit effort to prove the election had been “stolen” by the Democrats. “We got a big project working in Georgia right now,” Giuliani said on Steve Bannon’s podcast on December 19. Three weeks later, on January 7—the day after a MAGA mob stormed Capitol Hill to prevent the certification of Biden’s win—Trump supporters breached the voting system in Coffee County, Georgia.
“Trump’s operatives were so obsessed with proving their theories that they were willing to go to extreme, even extra-legal lengths to get their hands on the evidence,” Isikoff and Klaidman write.
Powell and 18 others, including Trump and Giuliani, would eventually be charged in the racketeering case brought last year by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. In October, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties; Trump has maintained his innocence, and Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. (Representatives for Powell, Giuliani, and the Trump campaign did not return Vanity Fair’s request for comment. Wood, who was named as a state’s witness in the Fulton County case in September, said in an email that he does “not recall” receiving an email about the so-called hunting licenses and that he had “no involvement” in the matter.)
The Georgia case is one of four Trump is facing as he runs to return to power. But the proceedings have been thrown into uncertainty amid recent allegations that Willis was romantically involved with Nathan Wade, a consultant she hired to work as a special prosecutor in the election subversion case. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Wade and Willis for comment.)
Eric Lutz
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