# Is Sidney Powell insane? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 22, 2020, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169 "2020-11-22T04:25:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/301 "2021-01-08T23:31:50Z")
[### Twitter Bans Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, And Ron Watkins ](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/twitter-banned-qanon-accounts) More good news. This doesn’t directly answer questions about Powell’s mental health, but I’m sure her problems caused the ban. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/302 "2021-01-08T23:33:10Z")
> [@rbroome](#): > > So she had to go. But after she was officially no longer Trump’s lawyer, I thought she was brought back in to the inner circle as Flynn’s lawyer when he met with Trump to push for declaring martial law. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/303 "2021-01-08T23:43:02Z")
I believe you are correct. But Guiliani proved he could deep-six her once. He could do so again if she gets too uppity. Now that Trump has given up on any pseudo-legal tactics to stay in power, she really isn’t needed any more. Being around Trump is mostly a distraction to her right now. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/304 "2021-01-09T18:22:04Z")
Powell is still on the team. She had to be “distanced” in a small symbolic way lately. But she keeps doing that thing, and pushing for the real goals of the base. The real message is the one to the base, not the media or reality. The ackowledged employment status of Powell has no meaning when she is still doing the same thing for the same people. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/305 "2021-03-24T19:31:31Z")
And now to revive this thread, Sidney’s defense team have come out and admitted she was lying all along… sort of: - Her election fraud claims were so silly that no reasonable person should have believed them, so those claims weren’t serious = not guilty of defamation. - But, at the same time she herself DID believe them so she also wasn’t lying either = defense to something which she supposedly didn’t do… I guess. Are her lawyers basically arguing that she’s not mentally stable? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/306 "2021-03-24T19:38:24Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > Are her lawyers basically arguing that she’s not mentally stable? - I don’t think there’s an argument. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/307 "2021-03-24T19:44:27Z")
Seems that way. Maybe she should avoid a criminal or civil sanction, but the Bar Association would be negligent if they allowed a mentally unstable person to continue to practice law. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/308 "2021-03-24T19:45:02Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > Are her lawyers basically arguing that she’s not mentally stable? There’s no other way to read this defense except as a plea for “not guilty by reason of insanity”. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/309 "2021-03-24T19:47:32Z")
Either that, or they’re trying the basic “throw things against the wall and see what sticks” method. You just argue everything you think could possibly work. It often suggests desperation, like throwing a Hail Mary pass. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/310 "2021-03-24T19:56:23Z")
I am not confident that we are not all living in Marville, that Sidney is not le reine des coeurs, the psychosis is not the general order of the day. I see a great deal of evidence that, at the very least, the US needs to lie down on the couch and start the search for what is wrong in there. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/311 "2021-03-24T20:52:35Z")
I’m reminded of an episode of “King of the Hill” where Dale was walking back an earlier admission of a misdeed: “Well if all you’ve got is my confession, you can forget it. I’m simply not reliable “. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/312 "2021-03-24T21:30:09Z")
“Since Powell was making _political_ statements, she implies, she had a license to lie. After all, political rhetoric “is often vituperative, abusive and inexact,” and “political statements are inherently prone to exaggeration and hyperbole.” Here she is quoting the [Supreme Court](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8610537150639053664) and the [9th Circuit](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/244/244.F3d.1007.99-35327.99-35405.99-35333.99-35325.99-35331.html), respectively, although I’m not sure those observations can be stretched to cover a baroque conspiracy theory that includes many specific factual claims. When someone says Biden stole the election with help from a voting technology company that was determined to deny Trump a second term no matter how many laws it broke in the process, she has ventured far beyond hyperbole and inexactitude.” I didn’t want to let the word “abusive” go by without comment. She is claiming the right to abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/313 "2021-03-24T21:46:59Z")
She seems to be claiming that political lies are protected, and even if you tell deliberate lies designed to financially damage a private company, this should be allowed. As long as you can put a “political” fig-leaf on it. Well that’s certainly not open to abuse, is it? \< /sarcasm \> ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/314 "2021-03-24T21:50:42Z")
I think this is the third right-winger whose defense in court has been, “hey, no reasonable person should take us seriously.” Powell, F. Carlson, and Loony McSpittle, uh, that guy with his own network who sells worthless pills. ETA: Alex Jones! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/315 "2021-03-24T22:12:09Z")
Her defense against the defamation claim is fundamentally incompatible with her apparent defense against the claims of professional misconduct. It seems clear she’s done the math and has made a choice. She’s accepting the likelihood of disbarment in order to try to get off the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars of damages. She put herself in a corner, hoping to finagle a Trump victory that would give her an ally, and now this is the only way out. It’s a rational strategy. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/316 "2021-03-24T22:19:28Z")
But is it possible it will go beyond disbarment? Can criminal charges be possible? Brian ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/317 "2021-03-24T23:00:33Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > She seems to be claiming that political lies are protected, and even if you tell deliberate lies designed to financially damage a private company, this should be allowed. As long as you can put a “political” fig-leaf on it. Ah, the classic “You can’t call him a pig-fucker!”/“I just want to make him have to go out there and deny it!” strategy. > [@RitterSport](#): > > I think this is the third right-winger whose defense in court has been, “hey, no reasonable person should take us seriously.” The way they’ll try to play this sympathetically is that it should have been obvious all along they were just expressing what they thought likely to be happening, but there was no way they could have known it for an absolute fact, and that all the two months of wasting time were about trying to get a court to take the case to prove it was or wasn’t so. She’d better hope she’s orders of magnitude more effective throwing bullshit at the court on defense as she was on the attack. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/318 "2021-03-25T14:50:12Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Her defense against the defamation claim is fundamentally incompatible with her apparent defense against the claims of professional misconduct. It seems clear she’s done the math and has made a choice. She’s accepting the likelihood of disbarment in order to try to get off the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars of damages. She put herself in a corner, hoping to finagle a Trump victory that would give her an ally, and now this is the only way out. **It’s a rational strategy.** Hey, wait a minute. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/319 "2021-03-25T15:02:57Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > It’s a rational strategy. That seems very un-Powell-like. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2021, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169/320 "2021-03-25T15:14:15Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > She seems to be claiming that political lies are protected, and even if you tell deliberate lies **designed to financially damage a private company** , this should be allowed. As long as you can put a “political” fig-leaf on it. You don’t even need the fig-leaf. “I didn’t “design it” to “financially damage a private company”, I designed it to politically damage my opponent. The financial damage a private company was just unavoidable collateral damage.” If this is allowed to stand, then any company, or any person, no matter the circumstances, can have their life ruined just so someone else can attack a politician. The courts really do need to stop accepting this BS excuse and make an example of someone. Might as well start here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-sidney-powell-insane/926169.md?page=17)