Sidney Powell—the pro-Trump attorney who became a heroine in the far-right QAnon movement for pushing fantastical “Kraken” election-fraud lawsuits—will headline a “Make American Free Again” virtual summit later this week.
The event, which takes place on Sunday, March 21, will bring together a group of so-called “patriots’ to discuss the “imminent threat to our very freedoms and way of life.” The list of speaks include Richard Mack, a former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona and a founder of the far-right militia known as the Oath Keepers; Jeff Brain, the CEO of Clouthub, an alternative social media platform that panders to the far right, religious right activist Christine Hutcherson, who founded the Women Fighting for America organization to “bring back morality, biblical foundation, Constitution, and freedom into this nation.”
“In this virtual summit, you will hear from state and national leaders who are on the forefront, restoring our republic and fighting for our rights at the grassroots level,” reads the event summary on Eventbrite. “You will learn what you can and must do to help save the America that our founding fathers established more than 200 years ago. No one is coming to save us. WE are the people we have been waiting for. It is up to We the People now.”
The most recognizable name on the list is Powell, a popular figure within conspiratorial underbelly of the internet. Much of her clout comes from her longstanding allegiance to QAnon, as well as influential figures in the far-right movement like former Gen. Michael Flynn and attorney Lin Wood. She has been featured on popular QAnon YouTube shows as far back as November 2019 and has been known to use QAnon slogans and hashtags in her social media posts. Even her electoral fraud lawsuits are rooted in conspiracy theories that were propagated, in part, on QAnon forums and spaces.
For months, Powell claimed that Dominion Voting Systems—the election company smeared by Republicans and right-wing activists with baseless voter fraud conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election—was created in Venezuela for the sole purpose of manipulating election results in favor of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Powell claimed that Dominion had rigged the election in favor of President Joe Biden and even went so far as to cite Ron Watkins, the former administrator of the 8kun message board and an influential figure in the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement, in her affidavit.
Dominion has since filed a defamation lawsuit against Powell, arguing that the attorney’s “demonstrably false” voter fraud claims caused “unprecedented harm” to their company. Dominion is seeking $1.3 billion in damages.
Despite the looming defamation lawsuit, Powell has continued to push conspiracy theories during media appearances. On March 11, Powell appeared on “The Right Side with Doug Billings,” where she claimed that former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler’s campaign aide Harrison Deal, who died in a car crash in December 2020, was actually murdered.
“That was no car accident,” Powell told Doug Billings. “He was vaporized by whatever the explosion was. Some people who know more about it than I do tell me it had to have been thermite to have triggered such a fireball such as happened in that car.”
