More Lies From Team Trump's Lawyers

The witness is code-named “Spyder.” Or sometimes “Spider.” His identity is so closely guarded that lawyer Sidney Powell has sought to keep it even from opposing counsel. And his account of vulnerability to international sabotage is a key part of Powell’s failing multistate effort to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Powell describes Spyder in court filings as a former “Military Intelligence expert,” and his testimony is offered to support one of her central claims. In a declaration filed in four states, Spyder alleges that publicly available data about server traffic shows that voting systems in the United States were “certainly compromised by rogue actors, such as Iran and China.”

Sounds damning, no? Except that it's all a lie. Powell's mystery witness wasn't a military intel analyst. He was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic, who left the Army as an E-4 after ten years of service.

Records show that Merritt is an Army veteran and that he enrolled in a training program at the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion, the unit he cites in his declaration. But he never completed the entry-level training course, according to Meredith Mingledorff, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, which includes the battalion.

“He kept washing out of courses,” said Mingledorff, citing his education records. “He’s not an intelligence analyst.”

In an interview, Merritt maintained that he graduated from the intelligence training program. But even by his own account, he was only a trainee with the 305th, at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and for just seven months more than 15 years ago.

His separation papers, which he provided to The Post, make no mention of intelligence training. They show that he spent the bulk of his decade in the Army as a wheeled vehicle mechanic. He deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he said he worked in security and route clearance. He held the rank of specialist when he was honorably discharged in 2013, having received several commendations.

As the article explains, the 305th MI Battallion is a training outfit. They analyze nothing. This self-styled "military intelligence expert" couldn't complete the inital training courses. he was an E-4 who was, in essence, pushed out at the end of his enlsitment because the Army has little use for career members of the E-4 Mafia.

Gee. So it seems that one of Trump's lawyers has been repeatedly fibbing to several courts over the strength of her case and the qualification of her witnesses. "I can prove corruption, my expert witness, a truck mechanic, saw the conspiracy!"

Funny thing: Most good lawyers know that shading the truth in filings to a court is a very bad thing. It causes the judges hearing the case to treat what the lawyer says with considerable skepticism. Even bad lawyers know that if one really fibs to a court and gets a judge upset, that can result in disciplinary action.

But the rules always seem to be different for Team Trump.