GWOne of Trump’s most virulently conspiratorial election lawyers has decided she can’t face going to prison, even for the ex-president. On the eve of her trial in Fulton County, Georgia, Sidney Powell reached a plea deal with prosecutors that spares her jail time in return for an admission of guilt and a promise to testify against her alleged co-conspirators – who include the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as well as Trump. Powell’s was a principal voice in Trump’s ear in the six chaotic weeks between the 2020 election and the January 6 2021 insurrection. She allegedly urged him to pursue the “fake electors” strategy by which a bogus pro-Trump electoral college was to be presented to Vice President Pence for approval on the day of the insurrection. Without evidence, she claimed in press conferences and lawsuits that US voting machines had been made by companies with ties to Venezuela where they had helped to rig elections, and she was personally accused of vote tampering in Georgia. Prosecutors in the Georgia racketeering case want to know if there were private conversations in which Trump showed he knew he’d lost the election and was trying to steal it rather than – in his preferred public formulation – “stop the steal”. They are one step closer to finding out. July selection in his Georgia trial begins today.