In a meeting at the White House late Friday evening, President Donald Trump floated naming attorney Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter “fraud” in the 2020 general election.
Powell, who served as a lawyer for Trump’s campaign team, has repeatedly promoted election conspiracies alongside Trump, such as a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in the U.S.
Since early November, Powell has led a legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election results that U.S. courts have soundly rejected.
With only 31 official days left in office, the president still refuses to concede, concerning top officials over with reluctance to accept the Nov. 3 election results.
A senior administration official are concerned that Trump is turning to fringe characters such as Powell for advice and support while refusing to acknowledge the views of officials whose beliefs diverge with his theories.
A White House meeting on Friday included Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has suggested in recent days that the president could invoke martial law as he seeks to prove baseless allegations of voter fraud.
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone also rejected the idea of a special counsel.
Flynn and Powell both claimed that they needed the Trump administration to do a lot more to support their efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory.
