Former Trump Lawyer Facing Sanctions In Michigan Now Saying The Things She Said Were Opinions Are Actually Facts
from the chronic-self-inflicted-foot-injuries-now-traveling-to-mouth-area dept
The Kraken is on the move!
Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell -- last seen being sued by a voting machine maker after making (and filing) a bunch of baseless claims about a "stolen" election -- is headed to Detroit, Michigan. There will be some more Michigan-focused courtroom action, but it won't be Powell playing offense.
Sidney Powell and other attorneys who defended former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election have been summoned for a sanctions hearing in a Michigan federal court.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered the attorneys to appear at a hearing on July 6, according to court documents.
This case for sanctions has been building for months, beginning late last year after Powell (and several others) filed a bunch of BS lawsuits in Michigan courts seeking to overturn election results. The state's sanctions complaints were compiled with the inadvertent assistance of Powell herself, whose response to Dominion's defamation lawsuit was to assert that no reasonable person would believe the outlandish claims she made about the voting machine maker.
Unfortunately for Powell, that group of "reasonable" people apparently included the judges presiding over lawsuits she filed late last year. Claiming you're really in the business of dispensing hyperbole and rhetoric may play well when faced with defamation allegations, but it plays much worse in courts where you're the plaintiff trying to convince a judge these same statements are potentially verifiable facts.
Even with all of this going on, Powell just won't quit making things worse for herself. As Jacob Sullum reports for Reason, Powell recently attended a conference in Dallas, Texas where she claimed all the stuff she just finished telling Dominion was nothing more than heated rhetoric mostly free of facts is actually a bunch of facts she stands behind.
"I don't think they realized that some of us litigators were going to catch on and hold their feet to the fire and expose what really happened," Powell said during the "For God & Country: Patriot Roundup" gathering on Memorial Day weekend, which also featured prominent election conspiracy theorists such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Florida congressman Allen West, and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R–Texas). She predicted that Dominion's lawsuit will be dismissed because "we meant what we said, and we have the evidence to back it up." If the lawsuit proceeds, she added, "then we will get discovery against Dominion, and we will be on offense."
That's not what she told the court. Playing defense against Dominion, Powell said:
[I]t was clear to reasonable persons that Powell’s claims were her opinions and legal theories on a matter of utmost public concern…
But in front of this crowd of conspiracy theorists and Trump torch-carriers, Powell claims to have the "evidence" to back up her "opinions and legal theories." Well, we'll see how that plays out when she returns to court to continue facing Dominion's lawsuit. We'll also see what effect being sanctioned for filing bullshit lawsuits in Michigan will have on the lawsuit she didn't file. Chances are, none of this will work out well for Powell. Trying to have it both ways just isn't going to work.
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Filed Under: defamation, facts, opinion, sanctions, sidney powell, the kraken
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You know
I wonder how the judge in the case will like that. Or the bar. Or any AGs. I mean, won't this now raise case of flip flopping?
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Powell is spinning fast enough to create her own tornado.
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So. Much. Evidence
She predicted that Dominion's lawsuit will be dismissed because "we meant what we said, and we have the evidence to back it up."
It would have really been nice if she pulled out this evidence last year, when it might have been useful! Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t exist. It’s amazing how stupid the rubes are that keep believing the garbage that she keeps shoveling. And they keep donating money for an endgame that will never happen.
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Someone's put too much crack in that kraken.
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I'm kind of surprised that no die-hard Trump supporters have claimed that Powell's stupid antics aren't really stupid antics but instead a clever ruse, and that by deeming them stupid antics we're falling for her ruse hook, line and sinker.
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Re:
Such gullible rubes - like the judges who will sanction her and Dominion who will wipe the floor with her until she begs for a settlement. She really got them! She got them so good she's going to lose her lunch to them.
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Re:
They're too busy claiming that Trump is secretly still in power and will reveal himself in August (or whenever, the date keeps changing). Powell is irrelevant to their current fantasies.
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Ah yes, the great Trump secret power reveal date - the Disney copyright extension expiry date of politics...
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Re: Re: Re:
Hardly. The copyright issue is very real, but may be able to be defeated at some point with logic and evidence (not killed completely, but perhaps a further extension can be avoided).
The Trump thing is more like a kid who thinks that if he just wishes hard enough then Santa will be real again and he'll make a special delivery for all the presents they missed. Sad and pathetic at any time, but scary and disheartening when the "kid" is a middle aged adult with greater voting rights than people with a grasp on reality
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Trump hires only the best loons, kooks and insurrectionists.
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"Michael Flynn, former Florida congressman Allen West, and Rep. Louie Gohmert"
I found some leftover food behind my cat's litter box earlier, something I'd put near her bowl after I'd cooked lunch but now as dried up and funny looking as anything she leaves in the box. I reckon there's more integrity, honesty and intelligence there than there was at this event.
"we meant what we said, and we have the evidence to back it up"
Cool. Now, all that anyone has been asking is that you let the rest of us look at the evidence. It seems highly suspicious that you're still holding on to the evidence nearly 6 months after the person you can prove lost the election was sworn into office, but there's an easy way to get everyone else on your side...
"If the lawsuit proceeds, she added, "then we will get discovery against Dominion, and we will be on offense
Wait... I thought you already had all the evidence. What would discovery do to benefit you?
Who am I kidding? Most likely she knows she's screwed so there's only a short amount of time to grift the rubes before she loses everything she owns.
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You know, it is marginally possible that she believes everything she's saying. She would have to be delusional and totally disconnected from some aspects of reality, but it does happen. Maybe the pressure of being in an impossible position with a demanding overlord who expects everything and gives zero support was the trigger of a psychotic break (or whatever the actual term is).
But I do think it more likely that's she's an incompetent grifter who's out of her depth and doesn't know where the shallow water is.
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she's snapped
HOw do people snap like this? She was a competent lawyer at some point. She knows the law, she knows she has no evidence, yet she keeps saying she has it. Where is it? It obviously doesn't exist otherwise she'd have used it during the actual lawsuits she thought.
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Re: she's snapped
You mean you find things like quadruple-hearsay and an anonymous expert witness to be unconvincing?
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Re: she's snapped
Alas, she had it, but it was stolen by radical atheist liberal islamofascist antifa communist gays.
Obviously.
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Re: she's snapped
She knows the law, she knows she has no evidence, yet she keeps saying she has it.
She watched Trump do the same thing for 4 years.
She figured if the simple minded rubes who support him could be convinced not to trust their own eyes, or believe the functional equivalent of a 4chan prank (Q), that the courts must've come around the same way.
Fortunately that level of abject stupidity is only affecting less than half of the populace. And the only reason I say that optimistically, is my hope that these morons will acquire Darwin Awards at some point.
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Rock, meet hard place.
Grabs the popcorn
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Like when Hooters tried to claim it was a family restaurant for zoning but an entertainment venue when the male waiters sued.
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'It's fact! I mean opinion! I mean totally fact!'
Yeah, I don't see this working out so well for her in her pending lawsuits and sanction hearings, trying to argue both that what she's saying is nothing but opinion and iron-clad facts is probably not going to look to well for the judges and those in charge of sanctions, not to mention Dominion's lawyers have got to be salivating over bringing this up in court.
At this point I suspect that unless she is really mentally ill(which I wouldn't rule out) PaulT is right and she knows she's screwed and is trying to grift as much as possible before the hammer comes down so hard she no longer can.
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