Court upholds sanctions for some − not all − lawyers for suit to overturn Mich. election

A federal appeals court panel Friday upheld sanctions against attorney Sidney Powell for spearheading a legal effort to award Michigan's Electoral College votes to former President Donald Trump in 2020 despite his loss in the battleground state. While the panel ruled that others involved in the case will also have to pay for filing frivolous claims of election fraud, it ruled that a pair of lawyers won't pay a dime.

The panel found that the attorneys sanctioned failed to investigate their own claims before filing them, apparently never read the Michigan election law they accused election workers and voters of violating and filed exhibits that undermined their own allegations about Dominion voting machines.

Under the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Powell and six lawyers involved collectively owe $132,810.62 to the City of Detroit for having to defend itself against the conspiracy-ridden lawsuit that contained wild allegations related to voting machines and voter turnout.

The same group − excluding attorney Lin Wood − also owe $19,639.75 in legal fees to the state. Sanctions imposed by the lower court against attorneys Emily Newman and Stephanie Junttila were reversed by the appeals court.

Newman didn't file or sign the complaint, and encountered no pushback when she said at a hearing that she played a small part in the litigation while Junttila did not advocate for the complaint’s frivolous claims, the appeals court panel found. Wood doesn't owe attorney fees to the state because the state defendants never sought sanctions against him, the panel found.

But all nine attorneys involved in the 2020 election lawsuit face a complaint filed by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission recommending disciplinary action be taken against them. A Michigan Attorney Discipline Board will decide what, if any, punishment they should face.

Powell's 2020 lawsuit mirrored others to thwart the will of voters in other battleground states, calling it part of a legal strategy that would "release the Kraken" — a reference to the film "Clash of the Titans."

Michigan commission: Discipline 'Kraken' lawyers for lawsuit to overturn 2020 election

U.S. District Judge Linda Parker in December 2021 ordered all of the attorneys involved to pay $21,964.75 to the state and $153,285.62 to Detroit to cover legal fees. The federal appeals court order issued Friday not only changed which lawyers were responsible for paying those legal fees but lowered the total amount owed after reviewing the hours billed by lawyers for the state and city.

Parker accused the Kraken attorneys of abusing the legal system to damage voters' faith in the election system in an opinion and order supporting her decision to impose sanctions. She wrote that "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."

The federal appeals court panel similarly cast the allegations of election fraud as far-fetched, noting that the complaint filed "alleged that an international 'collaboration'—with origins in Venezuela, extending to China and Iran, and including state actors in Michigan itself—had succeeded in generating hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Michigan, thereby swinging the state’s electoral votes to Joseph Biden."

"Other allegations arose from facially unreliable expert reports; still others were simply baseless," the panel states in its opinion.

All three appeals court judges are Republican appointees: Judge Danny Boggs was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan while Judges Raymond Kethledge and Helene White were appointed by former President George W. Bush.

In addition to Powell and Wood, the other lawyers who must pay for their participation in the lawsuit are Gregory Rohl, Brandon Johnson, Howard Kleinhendler, Julia Haller and Scott Hagerstrom.

2020 election: Judge orders Karamo and others to pay for last-minute election lawsuit targeting Detroit

Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Court upholds sanctions for only some Kraken attorneys