DETROIT (Legal Newsline) – Attorneys who pursued failed litigation that claimed the 2020 Presidential election was rigged have been left with the tab.
On Dec. 2, Michigan federal judge Linda Parker ordered the Donald Trump-backers who sued Michigan and Detroit officials to pay about $175,000 to them. Lawyers for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson requested $21,964.75, while the City of Detroit asked for $182,192.
Judge Parker cut about $29,000 from Detroit’s request.
“An award to the City of $153,285.62 is an appropriate sanction for the conduct discussed in the Court’s August 25 decision, and is an amount the Court finds needed to deter Plaintiffs’ counsel and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future,” Parker wrote.
“Plaintiffs attorneys, many of whom seek donations from the public to fund lawsuits like this one, have the ability to pay this sanction.”
The case was led by former prosecutor Sidney Powell and claimed corruption spread to the voting machines in Michigan in order to deliver the state’s electoral votes to President Joe Biden.
Parker criticized the plaintiffs for not gathering any proof and announced in August that she was imposing sanctions on them.
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 said 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.”