Sidney Powell will not be having a Friday happy hour.
ATLANTA A defendant in the sweeping election-interference case against former president
Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton County, Ga., became the first to plead guilty on Friday.
Scott Hall, a 59-year-old bail bondsman from the Augusta area who prosecutors alleged played a wide-ranging role in efforts to overturn Trump's loss in Georgia, pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. The felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors because of Hall's status as a first-time offender.
Hall agreed to serve five years of probation and, importantly for the prosecution's case, will testify.
Prosecutors had alleged in a
98-page indictment unsealed last month that Hall served as a linchpin of a secretive effort to access and copy elections software in remote Coffee County, working alongside pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who allegedly retained the forensic data firm that accompanied Hall and others to Coffee County. As part of his efforts to turn up evidence of voter fraud, Hall gained the ear of top officials not just in Georgia but also in Washington.
In the weeks after the election, Hall held meetings or had phone conversations with leaders of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, according to people involved. Prosecutors say that on Jan. 2, 2021, he had a 63-minute phone call with Jeffrey Clark, a senior Justice Department official accused of plotting to delegitimize the vote in Georgia and other states and galvanize slates of contingent pro-Trump electors.
Hall's alleged immersion in the broader effort to undo Joe Biden's victory in Georgia and his agreement Friday to testify "honestly" in forthcoming trials could affect the fortunes of those with whom he is alleged to have interacted. That includes pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, whose own trial in the case is set to begin Oct. 23, and former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark.
Hall was sentenced to five years probation with a $5,000 fine. According to the terms of his plea deal read in open court Friday afternoon, Hall agreed to write a letter of apology in addition to giving testimony. He was ordered to have no contact with victims, witnesses or defendants in the case and was also ordered not to speak to members of the news media, according to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.
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Bail-bondsman Scott Hall, a Trump co-defendant, pleads guilty in Georgia election case - The Washington Post