As part of their plea deals, lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro were required to apologize for their roles in interfering with the elections in Georgia in 2020. They both pled guilty and were sentenced in October 2023. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution used an open records request to obtain the apologies that were offered at their plea hearings, and reported this week that they are each one sentence long, hand-written on notebook paper:

“I apologize to the citizens of the State of Georgia and to the citizens of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” Kenneth Chesebro wrote.

“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” wrote Sidney Powell.

These are not apologies. They do not include enough of the elements of a good apology to meet the basic definition. When analyzing public apologies, I try to note what is good about the apology before zeroing on its deficiencies. Here, the most I can say is that the statements don’t shift blame to others. But neither do they really accept responsibility, an essential element of an apology. Often at sentencing hearings, the defendant does the opposite of what these two did — the defendant apologizes so profusely that their sincerity is tainted by the appearance of winning favor (a lighter sentence) from the judge. No worries about that here. No effort to take responsibility, acknowledge the harm done, articulate the specific actions that were so egregious, express remorse, or identify how they hope to behave differently in the future. One wonders why the judge accepted these as “apologies.” They’re not.