Sidney Powell Still Wants Her Election ‘Kraken’ Case Heard In Court
Topline
Attorney Sidney Powell is pressing forward with her baseless and widely-debunked claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, asking a federal court on Wednesday to hold a hearing after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers asked the court to sanction her for bringing the suit.
Attorney Sidney Powell speaks during a rally on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020, in Alpharetta, Ga.
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Key Facts
Powell sued Wisconsin after the election on behalf of the chair of the Republican Party in LaCrosse County, Wisconsin, alleging the presidential election results should be overturned because of widespread fraud, including via voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems.
The case failed in district court—and, later, at the U.S. Supreme Court—with U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper noting that “federal judges do not appoint the president in this country” and the relief Powell was asking for “is beyond this court’s ability to redress absent the mythical time machine.”
Evers asked the court on March 31 to sanction Powell and her co-counsel for bringing the case and make them pay attorneys fees, saying her lawsuit was error-ridden and filed “without the support of credible, relevant, or remotely admissible evidence.”
Powell and her co-counsel called Evers’ request “patently without merit” in a filing Wednesday and defended their case as “well-plead” and “factually supported,” saying the motion for sanctions should be denied because it is “out of time and frivolous.”
If the court does not immediately reject Evers’ motion, though, Powell said the court should hold an evidentiary hearing on it in which the governor would be forced to prove there wasn’t fraud as Powell claims, noting Evers “has offered no admissible evidence to refute any of Plaintiff’s witnesses or exhibits.”
Evers’ office has not yet responded to a request for comment on Powell’s motion for a hearing.
Big Number
$106,780. That’s how much Evers is asking Powell and her co-counsel to pay in attorneys fees for bringing the case.
Key Background
Powell filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states after the election alleging widespread fraud—all of which failed—and there is no credible evidence to support her claims of widespread fraud, including with Dominion voting machines. The far-right attorney was one of the primary figures on the right making outlandish claims about voter fraud in the wake of the election, leading the Trump administration and campaign to distance themselves from Powell even as President Donald Trump reportedly wanted her appointed as a special counsel to investigate fraud. Beyond Evers’ request for sanctions, Powell is also facing potential sanctions and disbarment in Michigan for her post-election case in the state, and an ethics complaint has been filed against her and other lawyers in Arizona. Dominion has also sued Powell for $1.3 billion for defamation for spreading the fraud claims involving the company’s voting machines. Despite claiming in a motion to dismiss the Dominion suit that “reasonable people would not accept” her claims about Dominion “as fact,” Powell has continued to double down on the fraud claims despite the repercussions she’s now facing, saying on a recent podcast, “I firmly believe everything I said was true.”
Further Reading
Sidney Powell Gets $100,000 Bill From Wisconsin: Governor Demands Legal Fees Over Election Lawsuit (Forbes)
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