On Wednesday, a federal judge imposed sanctions against nine pro-Trump attorneys who were involved in the legal challenge against Michigan’s 2020 election results, including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood.
U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker ordered the attorneys to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions including disbarment.
“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,” Parker wrote in her order.
“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,” she added.
In Wednesday’s ruling, Parker also expressed her opinion about the legal challenge itself, claiming that the lawsuit “should have never been filed” in the first place.
“Further, they presented pleadings that were not ‘warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or establishing new law’ and contained factual contentions lacking evidentiary support or likely to have evidentiary support,” Parker said.
Powell represented then-President Donald Trump‘s campaign when he attempted to overturn last year’s presidential election. Trump’s campaign, however, distanced itself from Powell after she began to expand her conspiracy theories regarding the election.
