Sidney Powell is using some the $15 million she raised from election conspiracy theories to fund the legal defense of January 6 defendants

• Sidney Powell is bankrolling legal fees for criminal defendants of the January 6 insurrection.
• An attorney for an Oath Keeper said they’re paying his fees and others’.
• Powell’s organization, Defending the Republic, has serious legal problems of its own.

A fundraising vehicle created by Sidney Powell is paying for the legal defense of people involved in the January 6 insurrection, a lawyer involved in one of the cases told Insider.

The group, Defending the Republic, is sending funds to Jonathon Moseley, an attorney representing Kelly Meggs, a member of the Oath Keepers militia. Prosecutors say Kelly Meggs, along with his wife Connie Meggs, mobbed the Capitol building and maintained weapons nearby as Congress certified now-President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Moseley told Insider that Defending the Republic was paying the bills for several other attorneys with clients defending January 6 criminal cases, and that it has an application process for defendants and attorneys in need of payment, but that details about the process are not widely known.

“That’s been one of the odd things about this,” Moseley told Insider in an interview Thursday morning. “I think they’re doing good stuff and they’re not telling anybody they’re doing good stuff.”

Representatives for Defending the Republic, Powell and her lawyer didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

Defending the Republic’s use of funds for January 6 defendants was first reported by Ken Bensinger in BuzzFeed News. A representative for the Oath Keepers told BuzzFeed News that Powell’s group was also paying for the legal defense of Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the militia’s leader, who the Justice Department has accused of seditious conspiracy.

The Justice Department has brought nearly 800 criminal cases overall against people who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as part of a mob trying to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. Leading up to and following the insurrection, Powell has been one of the loudest voices pushing false conspiracy theories that the presidential election results were manipulated in Biden’s favor, and that former President Donald Trump was the true winner of the vote. She has asked supporters to donate to Defending the Republic, an opaque fundraising vehicle, as she spread her conspiracy theories.

The group has raised over $14 million, according to records made public in November. According to the Washington Post, $550,000 of that went to a ballot review in Arizona that verified Biden’s victory in that state. Another $5.6 million went to unspecified legal fees and grants, the Post reported.

Defending the Republic has legal problems of its own

Specific details about how Defending the Republic uses its money are hard to come by.

In late 2020, Powell said the money would be used to pay for lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results — all of which failed, and one of which resulted in sanctions against her and her colleagues with more possible sanctions in her home state of Texas. In an August deposition, a lawyer for Defending the Republic said some money would be used to challenge mask and vaccine mandates.

People listed as officers in incorporation papers for Defending the Republic told the Washington Post that, in reality, they had either resigned did not have broad responsibility delineated in the group’s official documentation, and that Powell personally kept a firm grip over how it spent funds. In December, a grand jury found that Powell had falsely filled out incorporation documents as part of a federal investigation into her fundraising, according to The Guardian.

Defending the Republic is also named as a defendant in a lawsuit that Dominion has brought against Powell, alleging she defamed the election technology company with her conspiracy theories. In court filings, Dominion has argued that Defending the Republic is Powell’s corporate “alter ego” that she has used to funnel money to herself. Powell is also fighting a subpoena from the January 6 Committee in the House of Representatives seeking her phone records.

Moseley told Insider that lawyers and defendants involved in the January 6 insurrection can apply to have it cover legal fees, but that he personally didn’t have to go through the process because Meggs had already been approved for the program before he joined the case.

“I have told many people to go talk to them, that they should apply,” Moseley said. “But I didn’t have to do an actual application form or anything like that because I was invited.”

Moseley has also previously represented Zachary Price, a member of the Proud Boys charged with crimes related to his attack on the Capitol, and told Insider he hasn’t been completely paid for his work on Price’s case. He said he would have applied to Defending the Republic’s fund had he “known about this option” at the time.

Court records show that Moseley is also listed as an attorney representing Christopher Price and Cynthia Ballenger, another husband-wife due charged with crimes linked to the attack on the Capitol. He told Insider he didn’t ask Defending the Republic to pay their legal fees because he “didn’t anticipate much work” in their case, and that another attorney was handling most of the work pro bono.

Moseley said he doesn’t know Powell personally, nor is he familiar with Howard Kleinhendler, an attorney for Powell also reportedly involved in making decisions for Defending the Republic.

“I just hand in my invoices every month,” Moseley said.

He declined to say who he coordinated with at the organization, saying they were “very private.”

“I don’t understand why these people are so sensitive about it,” Moseley said. “I don’t see the problem, but they are nervous. Other people are nervous about the attention, things like that. So I’ll leave them to speak for themselves.”