Judge imposes sanctions on Sidney Powell, lawyers involved in election conspiracy lawsuit

Sidney Powell and her team of pro-Trump lawyers must pay $175,250 in legal fees for their conspiracy-laden lawsuit that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, a federal judge ordered Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Linda Parker, of Michigan's Eastern District, imposed sanctions on the attorneys in late August. Her Thursday order determined the amount Powell and the others involved in the so-called Kraken lawsuit must pay.

Parker ordered Powell's team to pay $21,964.75 to cover attorneys' fees for defendants Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. She also ordered Powell and the other attorneys to pay $153,285.62 in legal fees to the city of Detroit.

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Parker called the penalties "appropriate" and said they would prevent "similar misconduct in the future."

Parker reduced the legal fees requested by the city from the $182,192 initially requested, removing fees connected to an appeal.

Nine attorneys were involved in the lawsuit — Powell, L. Lin Wood, Howard Kleinhendler, Gregory Rohl, Stefanie Lynn Junttila, Emily Newman, Julia Haller, Brandon Johnson and Scott Hagerstrom — and they are jointly responsible for paying the sanctions within 30 days, pending appeals, Parker ordered.

Powell and her team represented presidential electors nominated by the Michigan GOP and local party officials who asked the court to force Whitmer to award Michigan's electoral votes to then-President Donald Trump despite Democrat Joe Biden winning the state.

The lawsuit from Powell and her team falsely alleged that Michigan's 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and misconduct. Affidavits filed in support of the lawsuit contained falsehoods about the voter turnout rates across Michigan and absentee voting in Detroit that were touted by Trump as part of his disinformation campaign to overturn the election.

Parker essentially dismissed the lawsuit in December 2020.

In her opinion, Parker wrote the lawsuit "seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek — as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court — and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government."

In her August ruling imposing sanctions on the attorneys, Powell said they "abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings even after they acknowledged that it was too late to attain the relief sought."

Powell filed similar lawsuits to overturn the 2020 presidential election in other states during an unprecedented flood of election challenges from Trump allies that stress-tested the American judicial system. The sanctions imposed by Parker mirror similar penalties ordered by judges in hopes of preventing future lawsuits based on conspiracy theories and conjecture.

Parker previously ordered her sanctions be sent to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission and similar associations around the country that have the capacity to disbar and punish attorneys. She also required the attorneys to take 12 hours of training, including six hours focused on election law.

Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Sanctions imposed on Sidney Powell, others in Michigan lawsuit