An attempt by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell to appeal sanctions that she was issued in connection to a lawsuit that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcome in Michigan, where Joe Biden was victorious, is not going well. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has now rejected a brief that Powell filed, with some of the other lawyers’ who were also subjected to the sanctions onboard, because of a slew of failures in the document to abide by procedural rules for the process. A response from the court that was shared by reporter Brad Heath notes that captions, citations, and references to documents from lower court proceedings were apparently among the issues. Powell’s side has until February 15 to submit an updated filing.
Sidney Powell and other “Kraken” lawyers asked an appeals court to reverse a sanctions order referring them for disbarment proceedings.
They say a federal judge portrayed them as “overwrought, dangerous lunatics”—and claim that’s not true. https://t.co/5aCdKJthkb @lawcrimenews
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) February 8, 2022
The original document was unsurprisingly over-the-top. After all, these are the people who have claimed in some form or another that the last election was affected by expansive fraud, something that’s never been proven. Concurrently, the original filing from Powell’s side asserted that the court that delivered the sanctions against them “managed to shred the Constitution at the very same time it wrapped itself in the flag”… which sounds like nonsensical gobbledygook. They also talked about William Shakespeare, for some reason; as they put it, “‘Shakespeare knew that lawyers were the primary guardians of individual liberty in democratic England’… Americans know this too. Sanctions are not a saber but the resulting damage to civil society is the same. Shutting down speech is not our way.” No, issuing sanctions against lawyers who manipulated the judicial process to push documented lies is not the “same” as using a literal sword against lawyers. Do these people ever get off their high horses? Ever?
NEW: Trump reviewed a draft executive order that authorized seizing voting machines and agreed at one point during a contentious Dec. 18 meeting at the White House to install Sidney Powell as special counsel. @GuardianUS https://t.co/jkS8WzwjwQ
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 4, 2022
Remarkably, Powell’s side also claimed in the rejected filing that the election fraud allegations that drove their original lawsuit might be true after all, which is bonkers. Sure, no court in the entire United States has ever accepted the idea that fraud was responsible for Biden’s win — and sure, Powell herself is facing a hefty raft of defamation litigation over her promotion of false election fraud claims, but they’re not backing down, apparently. The specific sanctions that were issued against Powell and the other lawyers involved in the original case included referrals for possible suspension or disbarment. In addition, Powell and her fellow conspiracy-minded lawyers were ordered to pay a total of over $175,000 to cover legal fees associated with their case that were incurred by the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan. Michigan Federal Judge Linda Parker, who handled the sanctions, characterized that total as “an amount the court finds needed to deter plaintiffs’ counsel and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future.”
The "Kraken" lawyers' appeal of a sanctions order for their failed election-overturning lawsuit is off to a rocky start. The 6th Cir. rejected their brief because it didn't comply with a variety of the court's rules. pic.twitter.com/Dz6A1D888G
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) February 8, 2022
