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Judge Sanctions Trump Allies And Orders Legal Education For Failed Election Lawsuit

August 25, 2021

Nine attorneys aligned with former President Donald Trump who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Michigan's 2020 presidential election results will have to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions for their legal effort, a district court judge ruled on Wednesday.

"This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process," U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her scathing decision on the case.

"It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an
allegedly fraudulent election," she wrote. "It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here."

The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the attorneys — including Trump backers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — which sought to decertify Michigan's election results under the false pretense that ballots had been manipulated in Joe Biden's favor.
Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.

Trump and his allies sought to overturn election results in a number of states, often urging local elected officials to step in to help their cause. Out of office, Trump has continued to spread baseless claims about a fraudulent election.

That lie was a direct catalyst for the deadly Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, during which supporters of the former president stormed the national seat of democracy and attempted to halt the certification of Biden's election win.

"This case was never about fraud—it was about undermining the People's faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so," Judge Parker wrote.

canpakes wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 26, 2021 4:22 am

Judge Sanctions Trump Allies And Orders Legal Education For Failed Election Lawsuit

August 25, 2021

Nine attorneys aligned with former President Donald Trump who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Michigan's 2020 presidential election results will have to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions for their legal effort, a district court judge ruled on Wednesday.

"This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process," U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her scathing decision on the case.

"It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an
allegedly fraudulent election," she wrote. "It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here."

The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the attorneys — including Trump backers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — which sought to decertify Michigan's election results under the false pretense that ballots had been manipulated in Joe Biden's favor.
Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.

Trump and his allies sought to overturn election results in a number of states, often urging local elected officials to step in to help their cause. Out of office, Trump has continued to spread baseless claims about a fraudulent election.

That lie was a direct catalyst for the deadly Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, during which supporters of the former president stormed the national seat of democracy and attempted to halt the certification of Biden's election win.

"This case was never about fraud—it was about undermining the People's faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so," Judge Parker wrote.

A Republican-commissioned review of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast last year in Arizona confirmed the accuracy of the official results and President Biden’s win in Maricopa County, according to a draft report prepared by private contractors who conducted the recount.

The draft was obtained by The Washington Post late Thursday night in advance of a planned public release of a final version on Friday.

The ultimate findings will cap a costly and drawn-out recount commissioned by the GOP-led Arizona Senate that had been championed by former president Donald Trump and kept alive false claims that fraud tainted the election in the state’s most populous county. The process was pilloried by election experts who warned that the methods used by the firm hired to run the review were sloppy and biased.

After nearly six months and almost $6 million — most of it given by groups that cast doubt on the election results — the draft report shows that the review concluded that 45,469 more ballots were cast for Biden in Maricopa County than for Trump, giving Biden 360 more votes than the certified results.

The draft report found the count to have “no substantial differences” from the county’s certified tallies.

A man who once described a ballot being cast in his dead wife’s name as “sickening” and was cited by the Nevada Republican Party last November as evidence that massive voter fraud swayed the results of the 2020 presidential election has been charged by prosecutors with voter fraud.

According to a lawsuit filed in the Las Vegas Justice Court this month, the man, Donald Kirk Hartle, voted his deceased wife Rosemarie Hartle’s ballot. At a November press conference, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Consevative Union, named Rosemarie Hartle as one example of the “hundreds of dead people" he said had voted in the election in Clark County. The Nevada Republican Party also cited Hartle’s interview with KLAS Channel 8 in their voter fraud allegations.

Hartle told the TV station, which first reported the lawsuit, that his wife died at 52 from breast cancer in 2017 and that no ballot ever came to his house, despite a ballot for her being issued and received by the county.

“That is pretty sickening to me to be honest with you,” Kirk told the TV station at the time.

Hartle has been charged with two category D felonies, according to the criminal complaint. Both are punishable by a prison term of up to four years, as well as a fine of up to $5,000.

Hartle is the senior chief financial officer and treasurer for the Ahern Family of Companies, according to his LinkedIn page. The company’s owner, Don Ahern, is a major supporter of former President Donald Trump, whose rally the company hosted at one of their manufacturing facilities in September in violation of COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

Hartle did not immediately respond to a request for comment left at his office Thursday afternoon.

“Voter fraud is rare, but when it happens it undercuts trust in our election system and will not be tolerated by my office,” Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement. “I want to stress that our office will pursue any credible allegations of voter fraud and will work to bring any offenders to justice.”

Trump’s Former Chief of Staff Is Under Investigation for Voter Fraud


Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—who helped then-President Donald Trump peddle election conspiracies and played a key role in the attempt to convince Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of the 2020 election—is under investigation for potentially committing voter fraud. 

Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who became Trump’s top aide in March 2020, registered to vote in September 2020 at someone else’s mobile home, in Macon County, North Carolina, and voted in the November election by mail, the New Yorker reported earlier this month. But the owner of the home at the time told the magazine that Meadows had “never spent a night in there.” 

After the New Yorker published its story, Ashley Hornsby Welch, the district attorney for the area covering Macon County, sent a letter to the state Department of Justice (SBI) Monday asking it to investigate because the case involves “potential crimes committed by a government official,” and due to a conflict of interest, as Meadows had endorsed her and donated to her campaign. 

A spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein told VICE News Friday that Stein’s office had accepted Welch’s request to investigate. “We have asked the [State Bureau of Investigation] to investigate, and at the conclusion of the investigation, we’ll review their findings,” spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed told VICE News. 

Both Welch’s letter and the state Justice Department’s request for SBI to investigate were first reported by Raleigh-based station WRAL. 

Meadows has not responded publicly to questions about whether he actually lived at the address where he voted. An email to the publisher of Meadows’ recently-published memoir bounced back as undeliverable. 

But while serving as Trump’s chief of staff, Meadows was heavily involved in pushing the conspiracy theory that the election, won by now-President Joe Biden, had been stolen from Trump due to widespread voter fraud. Meadows, for example, was a participant on the now-infamous call where Trump attempted to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ‘to find 11,780 votes.”

Gunnar wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 29, 2021 8:37 pm

Surely even Giuliani must be beginning to realize by now that the worst thing that ever happened to him was Donald J. Trump.