ON WEDNESDAY, former Trump attorney and ally Sidney Powell received some good news. A Dallas-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a trial court decision denying any form of discipline by her bar association for her having brought numerous lawsuits designed to prevent the certification of the presidential election in November of 2020 for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (She was sanctioned by a court in Detroit in 2021 for ‘abusing the judicial system,’ and pleaded guilty in Georgia to ‘election interference,’ sentenced to six years’ probation, and fined $8,700, along with having to testify if called in Trump’s ‘racketeering’ case.)
About a year ago, the case against Powell’s was dismissed on her motion due to the multiple fast-and-loose deficiencies of the state Bar’s case, including the mislabeling of evidence, among other things. On appeal, the three-judge panel found the deficiencies even worse than the trial court found. “By its own admission, the Bar misidentified or failed to include multiple exhibits it claims to have relied on in its Second Amended Response,” the court observed, “But the deficiencies go far beyond mislabeling exhibits.”
Either they mistakenly believed it was a slam-dunk case against Powell or the Bar was just lazy, but either way, even after it tried to amend its pleadings, it couldn’t get the case against her to survive her Motion for Summary Judgment and get the complaint to trial. In fact, it couldn’t even produce four distinct exhibits it had “generally referenced.” It had alleged Powell had had no basis to believe the lawsuits she filed were not frivolous and that her sources were “wholly unreliable.” It further accused Powell of making several false statements in her representation., but the appeals court stated the Bar didn’t “evince or raise a fact question about a lack of honesty or integrity” on Powell’s part. The court found the Bar to have been “scattershot,” and failed to prove she engaged in “fraud, dishonesty, deceit, or misconduct.”
It’s unclear what the Bar will do. The scathing 25-page opinion is here. The Bar is also attempting to discipline state Attorney General Ken Paxton and his top aide, First Assistant Brent Webster, for having appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to get the election in the states overturned. Neither case has been resolved and will likely have weighty consequences.
Also in Trump news this week is this: New York Attorney General Letitia James is now facing a new lawsuit over her conduct that a Trump-appointed judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, will decide. This case involves a business fraud case from four years ago, brought by her office. The complaint comes from Ariel Schachter, the CFO of Northern Leasing Systems, which was barred from doing business in New York after a court ruled in the A.G.’s favor. Schachter now wants to open a similar business in Texas and wants the earlier judgment vacated on the rather obvious grounds the earlier decision was made under an ‘expedited’ process that denied him due process or even the opportunity to conduct discovery in the matter. New York needs to revisit its laws.
sua sponte 