DETROIT (Legal Newsline) – The Trump-backers who went to challenge the results of the Presidential election are trying to avoid penalties called for by Michigan officials and others.
On Feb. 11 in Detroit federal court, plaintiffs in the challenge led by former prosecutor Sidney Powell asked Judge Linda Parker to turn down motions for sanctions from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and others that followed their dismissal of their case.
Parker turned down the plaintiffs’ arguments but said they could try to amend their complaint, which they dismissed rather than change. Motions for sanctions that requested the defendants’ attorneys fees be paid by the plaintiffs followed.
“These repetitive motions, preceded by public press releases by the State Defendants, violate the very rules they claim to enforce,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote.
“They are not meant to preserve the integrity of the legal profession or to complain about repetitive and vexatious litigation. They are a new form of political retribution. Such abuse of the law has no place in this court and is contrary to the law it hypocritically invokes.”
The plaintiffs say they had ample evidence of election fraud when they filed their suit and thus, sanctions are unwarranted. They also complain the defendants asked for sanctions in their motion to dismiss and in another filing.
“The State Defendants’ current Motion for Sanctions constitutes State Defendants’ third ‘bite at the apple’ because they also filed a Joinder/Concurrence to (Detroit’s) Motion for Sanctions…” the plaintiffs say.
Robert Davis’ motion for sanctions has refused to accept the plaintiffs’ dismissal unless they pay his attorneys fees. It remains pending.
Trump-backers claimed Wayne County was a hotbed of fraud. Their lawsuit says the companies that provided election software and hardware were founded by foreign dictators intent on manipulating elections that would keep Hugo Chavez in power in Venezuela.
“If granted, the relief would disenfranchise the votes of the more than 5.5 million Michigan citizens who, with dignity, hope and a promise of a voice, participated in the 2020 general election,” Parker wrote.
Parker says the plaintiffs failed to back their claims that votes for Trump were destroyed, discarded or otherwise tampered with.
“The closest Plaintiffs get to alleging that election machines and software changed votes for President Trump to Vice President Biden in Wayne County is an amalgamation of theories, conjecture and speculation that such alterations were possible,” Parker wrote.
“And Plaintiffs do not at all explain how the question of whether the treatment of election challengers complied with state law bears on the validity of votes, or otherwise establishes an equal protection claim.”