Let's not forget this lying dirtbag either...
Judge eyes sanctions on pro-Trump lawyers who claimed voter fraud
WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday appeared likely to reprimand Sidney Powell, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, and other attorneys over a lawsuit they filed in Michigan seeking to overturn Democratic President Joe Biden's election victory.
U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in Detroit suggested the pro-Trump lawyers should have investigated the Republican former president's voter fraud claims more carefully before suing.
"Should an attorney be sanctioned for his or her failure to withdraw allegations the attorney came to know were untrue?," Parker said during a court hearing via video conference. "Is that sanctionable behavior?"
She said she thought affidavits in the case had been submitted in "bad faith."
Parker held the hearing to determine whether Powell, Lin Wood and other pro-Trump lawyers should be disciplined for a lawsuit they filed last November that made baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the U.S. presidential election in Michigan.
They are not the only lawyers allied with Trump to land in hot water for supporting his false claims that his election defeat was the result of fraud. New York state and Washington, D.C., in recent weeks suspended former New York City Mayor and Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani's law license after finding he lied in supporting Trump's claims.
Parker dismissed the Michigan lawsuit last December, saying in a written decision that Powell's voter fraud claims were "nothing but speculation and conjecture" and that, in any event, the Texas lawyer waited too long to file her lawsuit.
'REALLY FANTASTICAL'
Parker did not rule during the hearing on whether she would impose judicial sanctions on Powell, of Dallas, and her co-counsel, or refer them to a regulatory body for disbarment proceedings. She said she would issue a written ruling "in due course."
But she spent a large portion of the hearing grilling Powell and the other attorneys on whether they vetted affidavits claiming voter fraud in Michigan before filing them in federal court.
"I don't think I've ever seen an affidavit that makes so many leaps. This is really fantastical," Parker said. "So my question to counsel here is: How could any of you as officers of the court present this affidavit?"
Powell asserted the hundreds of pages of affidavits showed they had conducted due diligence, and that the only way to test them would have been at trial or a hearing on evidence they have gathered. Her co-counsel repeatedly called for such an evidentiary hearing.
Starting in January, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and other government lawyers asked the judge to discipline the pro-Trump lawyers, saying they had filed a frivolous lawsuit full of typos and factual errors and should be held accountable.
"What they filed was an embarrassment to the legal profession," David Fink, a lawyer for the city of Detroit, said during Monday's hearing. "This was a sloppy and careless effort."
Powell represented Trump's campaign when he tried to overturn last Nov. 3's presidential election in the courts. His campaign distanced itself from Powell after she claimed without evidence at a Nov. 19 news conference that electronic voting systems had switched millions of ballots to Biden.
On Nov. 25, a team of lawyers led by Powell filed a lawsuit on behalf of Michigan Republicans alleging rampant voter fraud. They also sought to have Trump named the winner of the Midwestern state's election, giving him Michigan's votes in the U.S. Electoral College, which formally elects the winner of presidential races.
During the hearing, Parker asked Powell and her co-counsel why they did not voluntarily dismiss their Michigan case on Dec. 14 when the Electoral College confirmed Biden's victory.
"Why did the plaintiffs not recognize this lawsuit as moot and dismiss it on that date?," Parker asked.
Donald Campbell, a Michigan attorney representing Powell and the other lawyers, replied that the election was "fluid" and unpredictable and that the pro-Trump legal team believed its lawsuit was still viable after Dec. 14.
Opinion: A legal reckoning may be coming for the lawyers who helped Trump push election lies
Opinion by the
July 14, 2021|Updated yesterday at 4:15 p.m. EDT
"There’s a duty that counsel has that when you’re submitting a sworn statement . . . that you have reviewed it, that you had done some minimal due diligence.” You might expect to hear that statement in a first-year law school class. Instead, it was made by a federal court judge in Michigan during an extraordinary court session that underscored the irresponsibility of lawyers who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Unlike for former president Donald Trump and other politicians who lie with seeming impunity, there may be real consequences for the lawyers who helped him peddle his spurious claims about election fraud.
U.S. District Court Judge Linda V. Parker held a nearly six-hour hearing on Monday to determine whether nine pro-Trump lawyers, including Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, should be disciplined for making unverified arguments in a lawsuit that sought to decertify President Biden’s victory and declare Mr. Trump the winner of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. The judge said she will rule later this summer, but her brutal questioning left little doubt about the recklessness of the attorneys’ actions.
The judge noted that one witness said in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit that she believed she saw election workers switching votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. Had any of the lawyers spoken to the witness, the judge asked, to determine exactly what she saw that led her to believe that votes had been switched? There was silence. “Anyone?” she asked again, and when there was still no answer she said: “Let the record reflect that no one made that inquiry, which was central to [the] allegation.” It was rich seeing some attorneys who enthusiastically promoted suspicions last fall and winter try to distance themselves now. Mr. Wood said he had no involvement in preparing the lawsuit even though his name was on the court papers. An attorney for Emily Newman described her role as “de minimis . . . a contract lawyer working from home who spent maybe five hours on this matter.”
Lawyers are required by legal rules and federal law to be truthful in court and avoid filing cases “unreasonably and vexatiously.” If Judge Parker decides to sanction the lawyers, she could require them to pay the legal costs of the other parties in the lawsuit, assess additional monetary penalties or recommend grievance proceedings that could lead to them being banned from practicing law in Michigan or their disbarment. Mr. Trump’s most prominent legal advocate, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has had his license to practice law in New York state and Washington, D.C., suspended as a result of his comments in connection with election-related litigation. He faces disbarment in pending disciplinary proceedings.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has set up shop at his golf club in New Jersey, where he blithely continues to repeat his fiction about a stolen election, a lie that his Republican political allies are all too willing help spread. It will be up to voters to hold them accountable for their abuse of the political system, but the court in Michigan has an opportunity to send a message about abusing the legal system.
