Sidney Powell, an attorney for President Donald Trump, has renewed interest in the phrase “release the Kraken,” over unproven voter fraud claims she’s made about the presidential election. What’s the meaning of the phrase “release the Kraken”?
It comes from a well-known Hollywood movie and was used by Powell to tease the release of evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Powell and the Trump campaign have not yet proven her claims with any evidence.
Powell has appeared on multiple news broadcasts lately, including Maria Bartiromo’s program on Fox News. She also appeared on the Lou Dobbs Tonight program on Fox Business Network. According to Newsweek, that’s when she made the comment.
“I’m going to release the Kraken,” Powell said, according to a YouTube video of the appearance, in which she also claimed that election fraud was “organized and conducted with the help of Silicon Valley people, the big tech companies, the social media and even the media companies.”
Watch the video of her interview below.
Here’s what you need to know:
‘Release the Kraken’ Is a Line From the Movie ‘Clash of the Titans’
What does the term “release the Kraken” mean?
According to Live Science, it comes from the movie “Clash of the Titans,” in which Zeus, king of the gods, gives the order, “Release the Kraken!”
“The term is becoming a cult-like catchphrase,” the site explained.
The Kraken is “a massive multi-limbed monster that roars menacingly and can destroy cities with a sweep of its arms.” Thus, according to Live Science, it is the “ultimate threat” and “Zeus’s nuclear option to teach unruly and disrespectful humans a lesson they would never forget.”
Powell Is Claiming There Was Massive Fraud in the Presidential Election, But Dominion Denies It
Many of Powell’s comments in her television appearances refer to Dominion Voting Systems. That voting machine company denies any fraud allegations in a lengthy statement on its website, which you can read here.
“Vote deletion/switching assertions are completely false,” the company says. “Dominion has no company ownership relationships with any member of the Pelosi family, the Feinstein family, or the Clinton Global Initiative, Smartmatic, Scytl, or any ties to Venezuela. Dominion works with all political parties; our customer base and our government outreach practices reflect this nonpartisan approach.”
The company adds, “Claims about software updates being done the night before Election Day are 100% false.”
We reached out to the company for comment on Powell’s claims specifically. This was their response:
The gist it that some erroneous claims appear to be conflating Dominion with a different industry company called Smartmatic.
DOMINION IS NOT, AND HAS NEVER BEEN, OWNED BY SMARTMATIC.
Dominion is an entirely separate company and a fierce competitor to Smartmatic.
Dominion and Smartmatic do not collaborate in any way and have no affiliate relationships or financial ties.
Dominion does not use Smartmatic software.
he only associations the companies have ever had were:
– In 2009, Smartmatic licensed Dominion machines for use in the Philippines. The contract ended in a lawsuit.
– In 2010, Dominion purchased certain assets from Sequoia, a private U.S. Company. Smartmatic, a previous owner of Sequoia, pursued legal actions against Dominion.
Trump has also made claims against Dominion, writing on Twitter, “Report: Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Data analysis finds 221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. 941,000 Trump votes deleted. States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.” He did not provide evidence.
However, USA Today reported that a national coalition has announced there “is no evidence that any voting software deleted or changed votes” in the 2020 presidential election. You can read the statement of that national coalition here.
The group “includes the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Association of State Election Directors” and described the election as “the most secure in American history,” USA Today reported, quoting the coalition as saying, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
On the Dobbs program, Powell said:
I can hardly wait to put forth all of the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez, and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries including this one. It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba and China has a role in it also. … We have staggering statistical evidence.
As soon as the states stopped counting votes, “the most egregious problems occurred,” Powell claimed.
She called the fraud “serious” and said machines were “producing altered election results. … We are talking about hundreds of thousands of votes. President Trump won this election in a landslide. It’s going to be irrefutable.”
Powell also said, “Patriots are coming forward all day every day faster than we can collect their information,” and said the machines were updated the night of the election and after the election. She said votes were “put in and replicated. There needs to be a massive criminal investigation, and it’s going to affect millions of voters and elections.”
She added that “changing a ballot” is a federal felony. She said Dominion has “been used all over the world to defy the will of people who wanted freedom.”
She said some governors and secretaries of state bought into the Dominion systems.
Powell’s Amazon.com biography says she was an assistant United States attorney “in three judicial districts under 9 United States Attorneys from both political parties. She represented the United States in 350 criminal appeals, and represented private parties in another 150, all resulting in more than 180 published decisions.”
The bio also says that she “was the youngest Assistant U.S. Attorney when she began practicing. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and the past president of the Bar Association for the Fifth Federal Circuit and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.”
Her website says she “established her firm, dedicated to federal appellate practice, in 1993. She is now practicing in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Federal Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court.”
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