Lawyering Up … or Lawyering Down?
News Analysis by Kent Ashworth / Inquiring News
Nine pro-Trump lawyers who filed a fact-free lawsuit – and then tried to make up s#!t to justify it in court – got caught cheating August 25th, when a Detroit federal judge ruled their dereliction of duty was so blatant it could get them thrown out of the legal profession.
Three lawyers who signed a pro-Trump lawsuit seeking to reverse the 2020 presidential election outcome in Michigan – and six more whose names were listed as “of counsel” team members – made their claims of fraud without checking the facts – and failed in their duty to proceed with a lawsuit in good faith and based on a proper purpose, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ruled.
Under examination, the lawyers’ effort to award the 2020 election to the former president “was never about fraud – it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so,” Judge Parker found.
Despite “the haze of confusion, commotion, and chaos” the pro-Trump lawyers attempted to create with their claim of election fraud, they clearly “scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way,” the judge elaborated.
Responding to the call from the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit to hold the nine unscrupulous lawyers accountable – and financially penalize them – for false claims designed to spread the former president’s Big Lie and erase the votes of 5.5 million Michigan voters, Judge Parker delivered an unusual, 110-page smack down decision.
“While there are many arenas — including print, television, and social media — where protestations, conjecture, and speculation may be advanced, such expressions are neither permitted nor welcomed in a court of law,” the judge wrote.
The nine pro-Trump lawyers, led by TV and social media stars Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, should now have to show why they shouldn’t be kicked out of the legal profession, Judge Parker concluded, citing federal rules against wasteful, frivolous lawsuits. Her decision will be referred to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission as well as to the appropriate disciplinary bodies in seven other states and D.C., where the shysters have shingles hanging.
With respect to the taxpayer costs for these shenanigans, the judge required the State and City of Detroit lawyers to submit their time and expense records from this rabbit hole. The pro-Trump lawyers can challenge the amount of the costs, but will have to pay them (unless they follow the usual playbook, to delay by appeal!).
“Sanctions are required to deter the filing of future frivolous lawsuits designed primarily to spread the narrative that our election processes are rigged and our democratic institutions cannot be trusted,” the judge explained, noting that while the Big Lie may have originated or been repeated by the former president, “that neither renders it true nor justifies counsel’s exploitation of the courts to further spread it.”
As a final rebuke, the judge mandated that the pro-Trump lawyers attend remedial legal training especially focused on the state election laws and local procedures they obviously did not understand.
Suffice to say, after months of crying fraud, the pro-Trump lawyers failed to manipulate and play this judge, who responded to their delay tactics by calling them on the carpet in July to get their sworn testimony about why they shouldn’t be disciplined.
The results were embarrassing. For example, attorney Lin Wood claimed he never got the City’s court papers calling for his disbarment (although an office manager sent them last December by snail and e-mail). When Wood told the judge he had only recently found out about the sanctions challenge, Judge Parker pointed him to his previous public statements about the case in other courts around the country – and the fact that he had raised objections on Twitter – on the very January day that the City sued to seek his disbarment. Lies have consequences.
Even so, cheating can be effective PR: Though 59 pro-Trump election fraud cases failed on legal grounds, they apparently have persuaded millions.
Creating and prolonging public doubts for the past 10 months has twisted conspiracy theories and sinister speculation into outrage over the alleged stealing of the election.
On January 6, 2021, the day that a joint session of Congress convened to certify the Electoral College votes from the 2020 election in the traditionally peaceful transfer of power, the ripple effects from the Big Lie (espoused by the former president as recently as that morning) provoked thousands of insurrectionists to riot at the U.S. Capitol.
After an emergency recess marked by deaths and physical assaults, eight pro-Trump members of the U.S. Senate and 139 members of the House of Representatives nonetheless supported sore loser antics following rioters’ threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence. The Senate later fell six Republican votes short of approving a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 invasion of the Capitol – downplaying the first such assault since the War of 1812.
Building on the Big Lie since then, more than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states.
Thus, the frivolous election fraud claims raised in the Michigan case (and in the many others cut and pasted) raise an important question: Should there be some measure of accountability for lawyers who damage democracy, even as they manipulate its judicial system purely for PR purposes?
One line has been drawn in Detroit: When those who lawyer up go so far as to lawyer down with ridiculous lawsuits, they deserve to be disciplined – and taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a shysters’ s#!t show.
Editor’s Note: According to etymologists, the word “shyster” (meaning an unethical lawyer) comes from the German word “schiessen,” meaning to defecate. Coincidentally, that was one of the actions taken January 6, 2021 in the U.S. Capitol corridors by the pro-Trump “tourists,” who also injured 138 Capitol and D.C. police officers that day.
