Who is Trump's crazy conspiracy theory lawyer Sidney Powell? How one-time federal prosecutor became QAnon follower peddling theory that Georgia's Republican governor was bribed by Communists to let Biden win

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Sidney Powell, the lawyer who proclaimed she was going to 'release the Kraken' – spent a decade as a federal prosecutor in Texas before she gravitated toward bizarre conspiracy theories including one that had Georgia's Trump-backing secretary of state being on the take to hand victory to Joe Biden. 

Powell had already revealed an affinity for QAnon conspiracy theories and gained attention for representing Gen. Mike Flynn as he sought to reverse his guilty plea when she joined the Trump campaign's legal team. 

She made some of the most outlandish claims at a Thursday press conference, where she claimed Venezuela, China, Cuba, George Soros, and Dominion Voting systems were all involved in a plot to throw the election to Biden. 

Days after enduring a blistering commentary on Fox News by host Tucker Carlson, she got dumped from Tump's constantly fluctuating legal team. 

'Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,' Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement.

Lawyer Sidney Powell, who the Trump campaign said is 'not a member of the Trump legal team'  was a federal prosecutor and appellate lawyer, then wrote a book targeting DOJ misconduct, showed interest in QAnon, and touted bizarre legal theory connecting Venezuela, George Soros, and Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in a plot to elect Joe Biden

Both lawyers had stood by Powell, along with attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing at the presser, where Ellis described the unit as 'an elite strike force team that is working on behalf of the president and the campaign to make sure that our Constitution is protected.'

Trump left no doubt earlier that he appreciated having Powell in his corner, when he tweeted on November 14: 'I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!' 

Before joining Trump's increasingly troubled effort to demonstrate election fraud, Powell had built a resume of credentials. She attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, served as a U.S. attorney in Texas, and represented Enron execs during the company scandal. 

The 65-year-old single mother one one - her son Wilson has backed QAnon claims on social media too - has practiced law in both North Carolina and Texas. 

But it was her representation of Mike Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser who pleaded guilty in a plea deal with the Mueller inquiry to lying to the FBI, which propelled her on to the MAGA stage.

It also appears to be the origin of her use of the nickname or slogan The Kraken. She has alternately been The Kraken, or been said to have unleashed The Kraken in the Flynn case - although her attempts to maneuver him out of the guilty plea are still unsuccessful.

Sidney Powell graduated Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, N.C., in 1973 then studied nearby, graduating from UNC Chapel Hill with a B.A. then going to law school there

Legal career: Powell (back row, center) practiced law in her native North Carolina and in Texas

Powell leveled accusations of electoral fraud and said she would 'release the Kraken' on Lou Dobbs' show on Fox

Fox host Tucker Carlson says Powell wouldn't share evidence, then asked his staff to stop contacting her

Powell represents former national security advisor Mike Flynn

She said without evidence that Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp was in on the 'scam' to flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden 

Trump's legal team has so far failed to produce any meaningful legal wins

But when she used the phrase this month, it went viral.

Days before the infamous presser, Powell made her 'release the Kraken' line, which shot across conservative media, after host Lou Dobbs introduced her as a 'member of Trump's legal team,' Mike Flynn's defense attorney, and a 'great American and prominent appellate lawyer'.

It was there that she said Dominion Voting Systems, which have voting machines in operation nationwide, 'was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shift internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one. It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba and China has a role in it also.' 

She said she would expose an election fraud effort involving 'Silicon Valley people, the big tech companies, the social media and even the media companies' and cited 'staggering statistical evidence.'

The Trump campaign said Powell was not part of Trump's legal team days after Powell appeared with Rudy Giuliani and other Trump team lawyers

The the Trump presser at the RNC headquarters in Washington, Powell expanded on her theory – now claiming the planned quiet fraud blew up because it 'broke the algorithm.'

'One of its most characteristic features is its ability to flip votes. It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system, and that's what caused them to have to shut down in the states they shut down in' she said.

 She got a smackdown from Fox host Tucker Carlson, who said his show had invited Powell on repeatedly to back up her claims, but she had failed to do so. ''She never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one,' he said.

She denied Carlson's claim that she got angry at the requests, and said she sent him an affidavit to explained the situation, but allowed she was 'not really a numbers person.'

'I fully expect we will be able to prove all of it in court within the next two weeks ... We have more evidence right now than half the prison population is imprisoned on, of this egregious fraud,' she told host Maria Bartiromo. 

One Trump supporting Republican Sen., Joni Ernst of Iowa, pushed back at yet another Powell claim – that members of Congress were in on the deal.   

'We have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates in any state across the country paid to have the system rigged to work for them,' Powell said at the press conference.

'That is an offensive comment,' shot back Ernst.

By Saturday, she took her conspiracy theory of a multidirectional fraud even further – to include Georgia Sec. of State Brian Kemp.

Kemp is a conservative Trump supporter. 

She told Newsmax – an outlet Trump has been promoting amid his feud with Fox – that Trump lost the state because Kemp was bribed by an election systems company. 

'Georgia's probably going to be the first state I'm gonna blow up and Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it,' she said.

'We've got tons of evidence. It's so much, it's hard to pull it all together,' she said. 'Hopefully, this week we will get it ready to file, and it will be biblical.'

Then she leveled her charge, without evidence, that Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger were on the take. 

'And Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it because they're in on the Dominion scam with their last-minute purchase or reward of a contract to Dominion of $100 million,' she claimed. 

After her time as a prosecutor, Powell went into private practice. She represented executives at Enron and other companies.

She appears to have moved gradually toward her critiques of the 'deep state.'

She penned a book in 2014, Licensed to Lie, on misconduct at the Justice Department. She told Politico the media engaged in 'a significant effort to kill this book with silence.'

After the 2016 election, she became a fierce critic of the Russia probe – flaming Robert Mueller for hiring some of the people she had gone after in her book. 

She would soon be drawn to QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that a cabal of Satan-worshiping child-sex traffickers are plotting against President Trump, who is trying to expose. It first emerged on 4chan in 2017.

Powell has also appeared on a QAnon YouTube show, and has repeatedly retweeted QAnon accounts. 

She frequently shares the group's slogans, such as #TheStormisComing, on her social media account.

She gave a talk in 2018 at a fundraiser for Flynn. Her talk was titled: 'Creeps on a Mission to Destroy the President,' Politico reported. The slogan, which she had rolled out on Sean Hannity's Fox News program, ended up with a web site that sold T-shirts denouncing the Mueller probe.

After connecting with Flynn's brother, Powell would become Flynn's lawyer after he dumped his respected law firm of Covington & Burling, and sought to reverse his plea.

Trump hailed the move on Twitter after it was announced in 2019. 'General Michael Flynn, the 33 year war hero who has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER, Sidney Powell. Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!' Trump wrote.