Sydney Powell Cuts Deal

The crime-fraud exceptions to the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine strip communications of their protection where the purposes of the privilege and the doctrine are no longer served; that is, where a lawyer’s services are enlisted “to enable or aid anyone to commit or plan to commit what the client knew or reasonably should have known to be a crime or fraud.”{3} The exceptions have famously been invoked to reveal, for example, Monica Lewinsky’s communications with her attorney during the preparation of Lewinsky’s affidavit denying her sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton,{4} as well as Paul Manafort and Richard Gates’ communications with their attorney regarding materially false information provided to the Department of Justice.(5}