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Judge sanctions Sidney Powell and other pro-Trump lawyers who filed 'frivolous' lawsuits

2021-08-26T08:25:18.102Z


A federal judge on Wednesday ordered sanctions for Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and several other attorneys who worked on Trump-aligned lawsuits that sought to challenge the 2020 election results.


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(CNN) -

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered sanctions for Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and several other attorneys who worked on Trump-aligned lawsuits that sought to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

US District Judge Linda Parker of the Eastern District of Michigan said the attorneys had "engaged in litigation practices" that were "abusive and, in turn, punishable."

"Sanctions are required to deter the filing of future frivolous lawsuits designed primarily to spread the narrative that our electoral processes are rigged and our democratic institutions cannot be trusted," the judge wrote in a 110-page opinion.

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Parker ordered the attorneys to reimburse attorneys' fees paid by state officials in the city of Detroit and Michigan to apply for the penalties.

Attorneys must also take legal education classes, the judge said, and referred his decision to the Michigan Bar Complaints Commission, and "the appropriate disciplinary authority for the jurisdiction in which each attorney is admitted," for a possible disciplinary action.

Wood referred his attorney to CNN when asked for a comment.

Powell and the attorney representing them in the sanctions dispute did not immediately respond to emails from CNN requesting comment.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, praised the judge's ruling Wednesday, saying in a statement that it "sends a clear message: Those who seek to reverse an American election and poison the well of American democracy will face the consequences."

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The lawsuit filed in Parker's court last November by Powell, Wood, and others was one of dozens of lawsuits filed last year as part of an early and important attempt by then-President Donald Trump to assert that the results of the presidential election November were illegitimate.

His team and his supporters lost all his attempts in court to push the idea of ​​voter fraud.

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Last month, Parker questioned attorneys about their voter fraud claims during a six-hour hearing in which their line-by-line questioning yielded a thorough account of the thinness of those claims.

The city of Detroit, whose attorney had argued that Trump's lawsuit was aimed solely at spreading lies about the election, as well as the state of Michigan, had asked the federal court to sanction the attorneys who had brought the case.

The punishments handed down Wednesday are not the first for a pro-Trump attorney to file election-related lawsuits.

Earlier this summer, Washington and New York State temporarily suspended Rudy Giuliani's legal license for pushing electoral lies.

CNN's Paula Reid and Devan Cole contributed to this story.

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-08-26

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