Lawyers who were involved in failed efforts to overturn Biden’s presidential election victories in certain states have now been ordered to appear — personally, albeit via Zoom — at an upcoming sanctions hearing in Michigan. The lawyers in question include Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and others, and together, they requested (through lawyer Donald Campbell) whether their lawyer could appear at the hearing (which is set for next week) in their place. Federal Judge Linda Parker abruptly denied that request this week via what’s called in “a minute order,” which US Legal defines as “a legal document which is recorded in the minutes of a court session rather than in formal court order format,” although other definitions are available.
As summarized by Law & Crime, the “State of Michigan and the City of Detroit have requested heavy sanctions for the… lawyers, up to their referral for disbarment proceedings.” At the imminent hearing, these requests for sanctions against Powell and others are set for consideration. Powell is facing other legal trouble of her own, with a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against her from Dominion Voting Systems, which was a subject of election conspiracy theories that she and others have spread. Powell was at one point, by Trump’s own telling, part of the legal team for the former president as he fought to get Biden’s win thrown out.
Certain legal efforts in which Powell participated were characterized — by her — as “Kraken” lawsuits, as though trying to make the cases sound intimidating, but not a single one of the cases got anywhere towards bolstering her claims. Every case was, in some capacity, defeated — and there was hardly ever any particular uncertainty about whether that would be the outcome. No court anywhere in the country has ever accepted the idea that systematic election fraud was present in last year’s presidential race. That fact hasn’t stopped Trump himself from continuing to make false claims of a rigged election.
In Michigan, Judge Parker also faced, at one point, one of the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits, which she rejected. As Parker put it at the time:
‘The right to vote is among the most sacred rights of our democracy and, in turn, uniquely defines us as Americans… The struggle to achieve the right to vote is one that has been both hard fought and cherished throughout our country’s history. Local, state, and federal elections give voice to this right through the ballot. And elections that count each vote celebrate and secure this cherished right.’
Judges appointed by both Republicans and Democrats rejected challenges to last year’s presidential election results. Even the U.S. Supreme Court, with three of Trump’s own appointees, refused to boost Trump’s claims of election rigging.
