(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“Plaintiffs’ attorneys have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way,” US District Judge Linda V. Parker wrote yesterday in a blistering sanctions order in the Michigan “Kraken” elections suit.
Last month, the hearing on the Michigan defendants’ motion for sanctions on Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Howard Kleinhendler, Greg Rohl, Julia Haller, Scott Hagerstrom, Brandon Johnson, Stefanie Lynn Junttila and Emily Newman descended into a screaming sh*tshow debacle. It was clear the court was about to drop the hammer on the lawyers who filed the ridiculous suit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election. And indeed Judge Parker’s opinion was a brutal smackdown of the attorneys’ conduct in this case.
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“This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” she wrote. “It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election. It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here.”
The violations laid out in the 110-page opinion and order are many, but in essence they all amount to introducing false allegations made by third parties as evidence, and then disclaiming any responsibility as a lawyer to vet that evidence — a failure of both candor and due diligence which violates Rule 11(b)’s mandate that representations to the court occur “after an inquiry reasonable under the circ*mstances.”
Copy-pasting an affidavit filed in another lawsuit where a rando dogwalker says he saw an unusually cheerful couple hand some bags to the UPS guy and assumes they must be delivering fraudulent ballots is not a reasonable inquiry.
Failing to examine an expert’s statistical analysis based on facially ridiculous voter turnout figures (782 percent in Muskegon, REALLY?) is not a reasonable inquiry.
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Declining to verify whether your anonymous so-called expert witness has the qualifications he claims to have — and then failing to clarify with the court when thePost outs him — is not a reasonable inquiry.
Docketing affidavits attesting that some people requested absentee ballots and then went on to vote in person, without bothering to ascertain whether this is illegal — it isn’t — is not a reasonable inquiry.
“The attorneys who filed the instant lawsuit abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings even after they acknowledged that it was too late to attain the relief sought,” the court wrote. That last sentence is a reference to the plaintiffs’ demanding emergency relief because their claim would be moot after December 8 when the electors were certified, and then continuing to argue the case through January 26.
Judge Parker was similarly unimpressed with the various excuses and disavowals the attorneys presented in their motions.
“Although the First Amendment may allow Plaintiffs’ counsel to say what they desire on social media, in press conferences, or on television, federal courts are reserved for hearing genuine legal disputes which are well-grounded in fact and law,” the court noted. Because attorneys may have a free speech right to say any stupid sh*t they want on Telegram, but that doesn’t extend to spamming the federal docket with unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and demanding that the court disenfranchise millions of voters.
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And Sidney Powell did herself no favors when she likened her advocacy to that of Justice Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education, bravely fighting against powerful interests and entrenched public opinion.
Yes, attorneys may and should raise difficult and even unpopular issues to urge change in the law where change is needed. But unlike Plaintiffs’ attorneys here, then-attorney Thurgood Marshall had the requisite legal footing on which his clients’ claims were grounded in Brown, and the facts were not based on speculation and conjecture. Brown arose from an undeniable history during which Black Americans were treated as secondclass citizens through legalized segregation in the schools of our country. In stark comparison, the present matter is built on fantastical claims and conspiracy theories.
But Powell was already in a foul odor with the court after her “frivolous” attempt to claim that an electronic signature didn’t count as entering an appearance and her public admission in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit that her fraud allegations were mere “claims that await testing by courts through the adversary process.”
Individuals may have a right (within certain bounds) to disseminate allegations of fraud unsupported by law or fact in the public sphere. But attorneys cannot exploit their privilege and access to the judicial process to do the same. And when an attorney has done so, sanctions are in order.
Whodathunk that the “It can’t be defamation because I’m totally full of sh*t” defense would backfire?
As to Lin Wood, who insisted that the court was not the boss of him because all he did was let Sidney Powell put his name on the case and then brag about his involvement, which isn’t real lawyerin’, the court concluded that “Wood is not credible.” Which seems appropriate for an attorney who testified that he never got notice of the sanctions motion, despite tweeting about it the same day it was served.
Over at Telegram, he seems to be taking the news well.
And indeed the court takes a similarly dim view of Wood and his compatriots’ motivation.
“And this case was never about fraud—it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so,” Judge Parker wrote in her very own italics.
So now the plaintiffs’ attorneys can cough up for the defendants’ legal costs and spend twelve hours of CLE “in the subjects of pleading standards (at least six hours total) and election law (at least six hours total).”
Most importantly, however, they’re getting referred for possible suspension or disbarment in their home jurisdictions. And in case anyone missed it, Judge Parker flags for those local grievance commissions that these attorneys may be attempting to raise money off their bad behavior.
The Court is troubled that Powell is profiting from the filing of this and other frivolous election-challenge lawsuits. See https://defendingtherepublic.org (website of company run by Powell on which donations are solicited to support the “additional cases [being prepared] every day”). Other attorneys for Plaintiffs may be as well, given that their address (according to the filings here) is the same address listed on this website. What is concerning is that the sanctions imposed here will not deter counsel from pursuing future baseless lawsuits because those sanctions will be paid with donor funds rather than counsel’s. In this Court’s view, this should be considered by any disciplinary authority reviewing counsel’s behavior.
OUCH. That one’s gonna leave a mark.
King v. Whitmer, Docket[Court Listener]
Elizabeth Dyelives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
Topics
Courts, Election Law, Government, Lin Wood, Sidney Powell
