U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed U.S. attorneys across the country to keep in close contact with state and local officials as threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities rise amid the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.

“As the FBI has noted, we are seeing an increase in reported threats against faith communities, particularly Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions,” Garland said Thursday during a speech in Jacksonville, Fla., to discuss redlining. “Last week, I directed all 94 of our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the FBI to be in close touch with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in their districts.”

He added that he instructed U.S. attorneys to reach out to religious and community leaders to ask what support they need.

Reports of domestic threats have spiked since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Saturday, a week after Hamas fighters killed more than 1,400 people, and took hundreds more hostage. Israel has since hit back by commencing a siege of Gaza and firing its own barrage of retaliatory missiles, killing thousands.

On Sunday, a 71-year-old man allegedly stabbed a 6-year-old Muslim boy and his mother in Illinois, killing the child and seriously wounding the mother. The Department of Justice is investigating the indecent as a federal hate crime.

“The entire Justice Department remains vigilant in our efforts to identify and respond to hate crimes, threats of violence, or related incidents, with particular attention to threats to faith communities,” Garland said Thursday. “And, as always, the Justice Department remains focused on doing everything we can to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism.”

A former attorney for Donald Trump who was at the center of his effort to subvert the 2020 election has reached a plea deal and will cooperate with Georgia prosecutors in the racketeering case against Trump and many of his allies.

Sidney Powell, who advised Trump during the final frantic weeks of his bid to remain in power despite losing the election, pleaded guilty Thursday to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Powell’s guilty plea, which she entered in a court hearing in Atlanta, makes her the first member of Trump’s close advisers to admit to crimes related to the 2020 election. She had been slated to go on trial Monday in Fulton County, Ga., on charges that she joined Trump in the alleged racketeering conspiracy and helped engineer the breach of election equipment in a Georgia county.

Powell was sentenced to six years probation and will be left without a criminal record if she complies with all aspects of the agreement, Judge Scott McAfee indicated. She also must write an apology letter to Georgia citizens.

McAfee told Powell the plea deal requires her to take the witness stand against co-defendants if requested.

“You’re to testify truthfully against any and all co-defendants in this matter at any upcoming proceedings,” the judge told Powell.

Powell provided a recorded statement to prosecutors Wednesday night and agreed to turn over documents to the district attorney’s office, a prosecutor said in court.

Powell became a key figure in Trump’s legal orbit in the weeks following the 2020 election, stoking conspiracy theories about foreign governments manipulating voting machines. Trump’s campaign pushed her away in November 2020 amid clashes with Rudy Giuliani, another leader of Trump’s post-election legal efforts, after the two of them appeared at a bizarre press conference in which Powell promoted her discredited notions.

Powell, however, would continue advising an increasingly desperate Trump. She appeared at a Dec. 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting alongside her former client, Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, to push Trump to use the military to seize voting machines. Trump came close to appointing her special counsel to empower her to lead that effort before rejecting it amid pushback from White House advisers.

Trump, at times, privately described Powell as “crazy,” according to testimony obtained by the Jan. 6 select committee.

Federal prosecutors pressing a similar election-subversion case in Washington against Trump have also identified Powell — without naming her — as an alleged co-conspirator in Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election.

The charges Powell pleaded guilty to on Thursday stem from her effort to access voting machines in Coffee County, Ga. after the 2020 election. Powell and others involved in that effort claimed they were investigating allegations of voter fraud.

Powell’s plea came as a surprise because she and her defense attorney had vigorously insisted in recent days that she had done nothing wrong and that she had explicit permission from local officials to access the machines.

But at the hearing Thursday, she said the state had the proof needed to convict her.

“Are you pleading guilty today because you agree that there is a sufficient factual basis, that there are enough facts that support this plea of guilty?” McAfee asked

“I do,” Powell said.

In addition to serving probation and writing the apology letter, Powell agreed to pay a $6,000 fine and restitution of $2,700.

The Texas attorney becomes the second of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the racketeering case to plead guilty following Scott Hall, a bail bondsman who reached a plea deal last month on similar charges.

It’s unclear what the sudden plea deal means for Kenneth Chesebro, another 2020 Trump attorney who is set to go on trial alongside Powell next week.

By KATE BRUMBACK (Associated Press)

ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell, 68, was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The acceptance of a plea deal is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. If prosecutors compel her to testify, she could provide insight on a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of that year during which strategies and theories to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, called Powell’s plea a “significant win” for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He noted that Powell is a very high-profile defendant.

“This is somebody who was at ground zero of these allegations and a lawyer who is pleading guilty,” he said. “This is very significant.”

Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Powell, declined to comment on Thursday.

Powell was scheduled to go on trial on Monday with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. The development means that Chesebro will go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal.

Jury selection was set to start Friday. Chesebro’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday on whether he would also accept a plea deal.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

Steve Sadow, the lead attorney for Trump in the Georgia case, expressed confidence after Powell’s plea.

“Assuming truthful testimony in the Fulton County case, it will be favorable to my overall defense strategy,” he said.

Prosecutors allege that Powell conspired with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, in south Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there. The indictment says a person who is not named sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White House’s chief of staff.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.

By KATE BRUMBACK (Associated Press)

ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell, 68, was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The acceptance of a plea deal is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. If prosecutors compel her to testify, she could provide insight on a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of that year during which strategies and theories to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

Barry Coburn, a Washington-based lawyer for Powell, declined to comment on Thursday.

Powell was scheduled to go on trial on Monday with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. The development means that Chesebro will go on trial by himself, though prosecutors said earlier that they also planned to look into the possibility of offering him a plea deal.

Jury selection was set to start Friday. Chesebro’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday on whether he would also accept a plea deal.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, last month pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

Prosecutors allege that Powell conspired with Hall and others to access election equipment without authorization and hired computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler to send a team to Coffee County, in south Georgia, to copy software and data from voting machines and computers there. The indictment says a person who is not named sent an email to a top SullivanStrickler executive and instructed him to send all data copied from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Coffee County to an unidentified lawyer associated with Powell and the Trump campaign.

Trial dates have not been set for the 16 remaining defendants, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Trump lawyer, and Mark Meadows, who was the Trump White House’s chief of staff.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.