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A federal judge on Wednesday ordered sanctions against lawyers involved in a legal challenge to Michigan’s 2020 election results, including Trump allies Sidney Powell and Lin Wood.
U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered attorneys to pay legal fees for city and state election officials involved in the case and fired them for further disciplinary action, including the radiation.
In a 110-page decision, Parker lambasted lawyers for seeking to undermine election results with unsubstantiated allegations of systemic electoral fraud.
“The lawyers who filed the lawsuit in this case abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by presenting allegations not supported by law; by presenting claims not supported by evidence (but instead unwarranted speculation, conjecture and suspicion); making factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required discovery; and drag out those proceedings even after acknowledging that it was too late to obtain the relief sought, ”wrote Parker, a person appointed by Obama.
“And this case was never about fraud – it was about undermining the confidence of the people in our democracy and degrading the judicial process to do so,” she continued.
Powell and Wood did not immediately respond when asked to comment.
The lawsuit, filed just weeks after election day last year, accused public officials of illegally manipulating ballots to help President Biden
Joe BidenUS intelligence report on COVID-19 origins inconclusive: WaPo NBC correspondent: History will remember Afghan withdrawal as ‘very dark time’ Defense and national security overnight : Outcry over Biden Afghanistan deadline MORE getting elected and sought to decertify Michigan’s vote count.
Parker last month toasted plaintiffs’ attorneys in a controversial virtual hearing into their work on the case, raising concerns that they used questionable evidence to support arguments for the court’s extreme demands.
Wood argued at the hearing that he had minimal involvement in the Michigan case, while Powell vigorously defended the conduct of the legal team and the case they built.
“I practiced law for 43 years and have never witnessed such a procedure,” Powell said at the hearing. “I take full responsibility for the pleadings in this matter.”
“We had a legal obligation to the country and the voters to raise these issues,” she added. “It is the duty of lawyers with the highest tradition of the practice of law to raise unpopular issues.”
Parker accused the lawyers of breaking the oaths they took upon admission to the bar by pushing to use the courts to undermine the electoral system.
“The sanctity of the courtroom and the litigation process is only preserved when lawyers abide by this oath and follow the rules, and only when courts impose penalties when lawyers do not,” Parker wrote. . “And despite the fog of confusion, turmoil and chaos that the lawyers intentionally tried to create by bringing this lawsuit, one thing is perfectly clear: the plaintiffs’ lawyers have disregarded their oath, flouted the rules and attempted to undermine the integrity of the justice system along the way. “
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