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It could also put her in legal jeopardy as she battles the libel suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems – a manufacturer that supplies election materials used by more than 40% of U.S. voters – as well as a Michigan sanctions motion. as part of a case she brought there for electoral fraud.
Gibson Dunn’s First Amendment expert Ted Boutrous said the legal implications for Powell could be dire.
“The First Amendment offers strong protections for statements of opinion,” he said. “But what Dominion points out is the fact that Ms Powell said she had evidence of this electoral fraud and embezzlement and she in fact said so.”
“The First Amendment does not knowingly protect against false statements of fact,” Boutrous added.
“It’s official, Sidney Powell is massive fraud – that’s according to Sidney Powell herself,” CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said of the new filing.
Powell responded to the reports in a statement released Wednesday. “#FakeNews is lying to everyone about our case” in the Dominion case.
Powell’s attorney Howard Kleinhendler posted another commentary on the Dominion lawsuit. “First of all, let me be clear: any suggestion that ‘no reasonable person’ would believe Ms Powell or her comments on the election is false,” he said. “The language to which these reports refer is a legal standard adopted by the courts to determine whether the statements qualify as opinions exempt from defamation liability.”
Dominion detailed comments Powell made at press conferences, a political rally and media appearances after claiming Dominion rigged the election.
“Because of the defamatory lies peddled by Powell – along with like-minded allies and the media who were determined to promote a false preconceived narrative – the founder of the Dominion, the employees of the Dominion, the governor of Georgia and the secretary State of Georgia were harassed and received death threats, and Dominion suffered tremendous damage, ”the attorneys wrote in the case filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Dominion is taking this action to set the record straight, to assert the company’s civil rights rights, to recover compensatory damages, to seek a narrowly tailored injunction and to defend itself and its employees,” said declared the company.
In response, Powell’s lawyers cited statements she made at a political rally in Georgia as an example of hyperbole.
“She said she had proof that the election result was the ‘greatest crime of the century if not the life of the world’,” they wrote.
“It is an equally well recognized principle that political statements are inherently subject to exaggeration and hyperbole,” the dossier states. And then they added this statement: “Reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but would only view them as claims waiting to be tested by the courts in the adversarial process.”
The judge overseeing Dominion’s defamation lawsuit in Washington is still considering the first questions about whether the lawsuit should proceed in his court and whether Powell can be sued and is not yet considering the legitimacy of Dominion’s claims that Powell knowingly spread lies about the company.
The initial statement from the court filing stunned David Fink, an attorney who is asking a Michigan federal judge on behalf of the city of Detroit to sanction Powell and others for not telling the truth.
“When I read the brief in this case, I was shocked that lawyers for Sidney Powell admitted that no reasonable person would believe the very allegations she made in federal court,” Fink said.
“These false statements are the reason why we are asking the federal court to sanction her,” added Fink. “Powell shows a startling disregard for the fundamental ethical obligations of our profession, a lawyer unable to speak the truth in court records should give up her bar card.”
Fink is not sure whether he needs or will bring the libel filing to the attention of the Michigan judge who sits in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Already, he had argued that if the sanctions against Powell are not deserved in his case “it is difficult to imagine a case where they would be”.
Powell’s co-counsel in the Michigan case, Stefanie Lambert Junttila, called the sanctions request “baseless” in court documents.
Rule 11, the federal rule at issue, “is not intended to dampen the enthusiasm or creativity of a lawyer in pursuing factual or legal theories,” she wrote, and urged the lawyer. court to “avoid using the wisdom of hindsight”.
Junttila did not return a call Tuesday night for comment.
Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at NYU Law, said Powell is now in a “difficult position.”
“Even opinions can be defamatory if they involve facts which are false and Powell knew this or recklessly ignored the truth or falsity of the facts implied,” he said.
“His problem is that his defense in the defamation case is going to sink it in the Michigan case,” he said.
Michigan attorney general and Democrat Dana Nessel told CNN Tuesday night that Powell’s statements and the lawsuits she filed were aimed at undermining the election.
“The harm that this person, this woman had done and her cohorts who filed these cases with her,” she said, “is unspeakable.”
“And who knows how and when this damage can be reversed,” Nessel added.
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