A Judge Slammed Sidney Powell And Other Trump Allies For "Profound Abuse" Of The Legal System
The judge imposed a series of sanctions against lawyers involved in one of Powell’s “Kraken” cases in Michigan.
WASHINGTON — Sidney Powell and other Trump-allied lawyers involved in pushing voter fraud lies in a Michigan court after the 2020 election were sanctioned Wednesday by a federal judge in a scathing opinion that blasted their “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”
Powell and her team, which included the right-wing attorney Lin Wood, were ordered to pay the legal costs of the state and local officials in Michigan they’d sued and to take classes on basic legal procedure and election law. They could face disciplinary action or even disbarment in the states where they’re licensed to practice law.
But aside from the practical consequences, US District Judge Linda Parker used her 110-page opinion to provide a detailed public accounting of how the lawyers had misused the legal system to press baseless fraud claims and other challenges to President Joe Biden’s win in Michigan.
“This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” Parker 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.”
Parker wrote that Powell and the team of lawyers who had put their names on court filings in the Michigan case violated their obligations to the court and the ethical rules they were bound to follow as licensed attorneys. Those violations included making claims that weren’t based in the law or legitimate evidence — “but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion,” the judge wrote — presenting information as if it were fact without independently vetting it and “dragging out” the case after they acknowledged it was too late for it to actually change anything in the postelection landscape.
Parker made a point of saying that she hadn’t definitively ruled on the substance of Powell’s challenge to the results of the election in Michigan and wasn’t being asked to decide now if there was fraud. But she wrote that was all beside the point because Powell and her team hadn’t pursued the lawsuit in good faith.
“[T]his case was never about fraud — it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so,” the judge wrote.
Parker wrote that the lawyers’ conduct had left her with no choice but to impose sanctions — it was the only way to preserve the “sanctity” of the courtroom and legal process.
Exactly how much Powell, Wood, and the other lawyers will have to pay isn’t known. Attorneys who represented Michigan and Detroit will submit a record of what it cost to litigate the case, and Powell and the members of her team on the hook for covering those costs will get a chance to contest the amount.
The lawyers also will each have to complete 12 hours of legal education within six months, including at least six hours on election law and at least six hours on litigation rules. Those classes have to be offered by a “non-partisan organization,” the judge added.
Finally, the judge ordered the clerk of the court to send copies of her decision to the authorities that investigate attorney misconduct in the states where Powell, Wood, and the other lawyers are licensed. The lawyers could then face separate ethics investigations and disciplinary action; the most serious penalty would be disbarment.
Parker wrote in another footnote that she was “troubled” that Powell had been soliciting funds and profiting from the postelection legal fights, and was concerned that the financial sanctions she was imposing might not stop them from trying something similar in the future if they could pay for it with other people’s money. She said she believed that state attorney discipline investigators should take that into consideration.