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the trump election lawsuit thread of dominance


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4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

“Raskin alluded to documents the committee received from Mazars under the Democratic majority last fall that revealed authoritarian governments like China's and Saudi Arabia's spent hundreds of dollars at Trump-owned properties when he was president.”

I’m sure that’s a typo and is meant to read “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

It’s a typo, you couldn’t get in some of those properties for one night at that amount.  It’s referring to them booking and paying for rooms but not actually staying in them.  A donation, but not a donation.  Or bribe.

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On 3/9/2023 at 10:48 AM, Gatorubet said:

What do you propose? Jail her ? Put her in stocks and throw vegetables at her? 

I say slap a little Valero vest on her and make her clerk swing-shift with no time for lunch except for bear claws. Then set up a time-lapse camera so we can watch her get fat(ter) and sad(der.)

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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

I say slap a little Valero vest on her and make her clerk swing-shift with no time for lunch except for bear claws. Then set up a time-lapse camera so we can watch her get fat(ter) and sad(der.)

That story is the Cancion de Mississippi. The El Cid of Hattiesburg, as it were.

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2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It’s a typo, you couldn’t get in some of those properties for one night at that amount.  It’s referring to them booking and paying for rooms but not actually staying in them.  A donation, but not a donation.  Or bribe.

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I don’t know if they stayed in the rooms or not. But I’m sure they told Trump they stayed there and what a nice place it was. 

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Not so stupid as to prevent a successful law school result.  Not so stupid as to fail the bar. Are these not presumptive barriers to claiming stupidity?  Same in Trump’s case, where thee freaking POTUS claims not to know the real election result.   These seem to me just not possible.   Thus transparently wrong  as a defense.  Help me ou gain, Twice.   How ridiculous must a defense be to be, IDK, rejected, pissed on, etc, don’t know the legal expression.

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33 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Not so stupid as to prevent a successful law school result.  Not so stupid as to fail the bar. Are these not presumptive barriers to claiming stupidity?  Same in Trump’s case, where thee freaking POTUS claims not to know the real election result.   These seem to me just not possible.   Thus transparently wrong  as a defense.  Help me ou gain, Twice.   How ridiculous must a defense be to be, IDK, rejected, pissed on, etc, don’t know the legal expression.

So last Friday I was in court on motion day and saw this go down: There was a summary judgment motion that was opposed by the other party.  Both of whom happened to be attorneys.   The opposing party attached as an exhibit a disciplinary punishment of the other lawyer.    Just so non-lawyers know, a summary judgment is the motion that says there’s really nothing we’re arguing about so the court can just rule. One thing about a motion for summary judgment is that it does not involve in anyway a weighing of credibility.   The only reason to slime the one attorney with his disciplinary history is, I suppose, to show that the person is not worthy of belief.   Again, there is absolutely NO reason to discuss anything having to do with the credibility of the parties in a summary judgment proceeding.

The slimed attorney filed a motion to strike the offending exhibit.  The trial judge was pissed that the exhibit was submitted at all. The judge told the filing lawyer that it was “immaterial, irrelevant, based on meanness, filed in spite, and wholly unprofessional.”  The lawyer was told never to do something like that again.

So sometimes a completely ludicrous and irrelevant exhibit is included in a legal proceeding to make a point in an improper way.   And often they are called out for it.  And often they get reamed out by a judge because of that.  The party who successfully got the exhibit struck did not ask for attorneys fees for drafting that part of the objection and motion to strike.    

The only point I am trying to make is that it is more routine than you think for attorneys to file pleadings containing improper and clearly questionable assertions.   In federal court rule 11 is there to allow the court to sanction and punish people who stray too far out of line.  All Twice is trying to convey is that Sydneys’ sins are not order of magnitude greater than what court see on a day-to-day basis.*  Rule 11 is sometimes invoked, but more often than not attorneys get away with a rebuke and tongue lashing (and being at a perceived disadvantage due to a judge who is not fond of them).  99% of the time that is a sufficient response to improper argument or exhibits. 

*J6 was clearly influenced by many things.  Sidney helped the narrative.  But as much as I hate to say it, I don’t think they all would’ve been there without Trump and Stone and Company orchestrating the event.    Her pleading was not the reason TtomTerrific stormed the capital.   Ttom and Billy Bob did not use PACER and have no idea what she actually wrote. 

I think she should’ve been sanctioned. I also think each of the 50 states has a different grievance and disciplinary procedure and it is very possible that an action filed in one state would result  in sanctions- while a grievance filed in another state would allow her to get off without any reprimand. Again, that is not a conspiracy. That is just the way the legal system works and a lot of it is the luck of the draw.

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53 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Not so stupid as to prevent a successful law school result.  Not so stupid as to fail the bar. Are these not presumptive barriers to claiming stupidity?  Same in Trump’s case, where thee freaking POTUS claims not to know the real election result.   These seem to me just not possible.   Thus transparently wrong  as a defense.  Help me ou gain, Twice.   How ridiculous must a defense be to be, IDK, rejected, pissed on, etc, don’t know the legal expression.

Well, as DDDad related, she was once a partner at Strasburger & Price and a well-regarded appellate lawyer in the 5th Circuit, before it turned to shit.  That was probably 20 years ago.  Bitch is old.

Obama or spirochetes or something ate her brain in the interim.

But, in the bar discipline case, it's not some generic "she lied and undermined faith in the electoral system."  It's point to a specific lie, prove that it was a lie, and prove that SHE, not someone on her team, knew it was a lie when she wrote it.  One thing that has become fairly apparent is that she did not actually write the complaint, others did, so it gets even harder to attribute knowing falsity to her specifically.

In neither the bar case nor the Michigan sanctions defense did ol Sid have to rely on "i'm a gullible fruitcake, so this may be obviously false to y'all but it isn't to me." She's been able to rely on a) it was a massive pleading, b) prepared in a hurry, c) by a large team 

One thing y'all don't seem to get.  Every lawsuit pleading is regarded as an ALLEGATION (you know, that whole "allegedly" thing).  That means it is subject to proof of its truth, or of its falsity.  That an allegation is highly unlikely, defies credulity, etc. does not mean it is knowingly false.  Federal court sanctions don't require knowing falsity.  The Rules of Professional Conduct promulgated by notorious fascists The American Bar Association, do.

Again, it goes back to another notorious example.  Everyone "knew" Bill Clinton was "lying" about doing sinister shit to Monica Lewinsky.  But proving that he did sufficiently to convict on a perjury charge took Ken Starr a couple of years and a couple of million bucks to do.

It's a lot harder than it looks.

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Again, I appreciate the responses.  I see what you both mean about procedural details.  My layperson astonishment is that the stupidity defense actually has weight.  Ignorance of the law is no defense, so the TV attorneys say.   But stupidity is a possibly credible defense.  
 

Not asking you to change things.  But does this not seem crazy?  

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It’s simpler than you’re making. I’m not looking it up but the standard has to be knew, or should have known re: false statements or lack of good faith basis. Otherwise every insane person could keep their law license after full blown dementia. “Well he didn’t KNOW he couldn’t file his poop as an exhibit.” Also the scale is important. This wasn’t one mistake in one case. 

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On 3/2/2023 at 3:18 PM, TwiceHorn said:

What result is sickening?  That Sidney Powell isn't disbarred yet?  That more lawyers aren't routinely disbarred? 

Yes to both.  If the legal profession would actually police itself, Trump wouldn't be able to find lawyers who will file his bullshit lawsuits because they would know there are repercussions.

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It’s simpler than you’re making. I’m not looking it up but the standard has to be knew, or should have known re: false statements or lack of good faith basis. Otherwise every insane person could keep their law license after full blown dementia. “Well he didn’t KNOW he couldn’t file his poop as an exhibit.” Also the scale is important. This wasn’t one mistake in one case. 
As an aside, a now retired Supreme Court Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, once stated in a dissent in a disciplinary matter that she had to note that there was no seeming rhyme or reason to the penalties that they impose. People doing worse things get less punishment and vice versa. The point was that it was a sort of crapshoot without logic, and therefore without any seeming justice to the process due to the unequal treatment for similar offenses.
I am not saying that it’s OK, but I’m simply telling you that a judge on the highest court in our state said that the grievance process was sort of a kangaroo Court shit show.
And I am here to tell you I think that is an abomination.  It is an area where our court has way too much discretion. Two similar offenses from lawyers with two similar backgrounds should result in roughly the same punishment. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. 
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2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

It’s simpler than you’re making. I’m not looking it up but the standard has to be knew, or should have known re: false statements or lack of good faith basis. Otherwise every insane person could keep their law license after full blown dementia. “Well he didn’t KNOW he couldn’t file his poop as an exhibit.” Also the scale is important. This wasn’t one mistake in one case. 

Dementia or other mental illness is an independent ground to have your license suspended, whether you do anything actually crazy or not.

And, she has never asserted that she's too big a dumbass or too deluded to know different.  It's other stuff impeding it.

I haven't parsed the Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia suits she filed, but my sense of it is that they are all pretty similar, especially as pertains to the outlandish allegations.  No one on this board can probably point to a single allegation of any of those lawsuits that is knowingly false.  They just have this vague notion that it was all bullshit.  That's not to say that there isn't something knowingly false, but establishing that is a nontrivial endeavor, despite what the armchair litigators think.

The Texas Bar alleged that she violated three Rules, 3.03(a)1, (a)5, and 8.04.  Rule 3.03 requires knowingly making a false statement of fact and knowingly offering false evidence.  Rule 8.04 requires engaging in dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.  It's a bit less clear whether those must be knowing or not, but as used elsewhere, fraud and misrepresentation, at least, tend to require the knowing state of mind, negligent misrepresentation notwithstanding.

Here's what the Judge in Michigan concluded in awarding sanctions:

In summary, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs’ counsel filed this lawsuit in bad faith and for an improper purpose. Further, they presented pleadings that (i) were not “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or establishing new law” and (ii) contained factual contentions lacking evidentiary support or likely to have evidentiary support. 82 Finally, by failing to voluntarily dismiss this lawsuit on the date Plaintiffs’ counsel acknowledged it would be moot and thereby necessitating the filing of motions to dismiss, Plaintiffs’ attorneys unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied the proceedings.

Notice that the basis of the sanctions does NOT include any knowing false statements or evidence.  It's just not the same.

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9 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Dude - she did not have a good faith basis that the voting machines switched votes. That was made up without evidence. 

Dude.

The standard for violating the Rules of Conduct is not good faith basis.  You'd have to show she KNEW it wasn't true.  Not that she failed to inquire when she should have, but KNEW it.

You'd have to find some pretty conclusive source that Dominion didn't switch votes, which we all "know" but none of us can prove, and also that she knew of that source.

The Michigan court found the Dominion related stuff to run afoul of Rule 11 not because it was proven untrue, but because it wasn't alleged on information and belief.

 

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1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

The burden is on her to show her basis for the pleading. None exists 

Not in the disciplinary proceeding it's not.  It's on the Bar to prove the violation of the rule.

And, she could have avoided any trouble with that by alleging it on information and belief, even according to the Michigan court.

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18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not in the disciplinary proceeding it's not.  It's on the Bar to prove the violation of the rule.

And, she could have avoided any trouble with that by alleging it on information and belief, even according to the Michigan court.

Lulz.  The legal profession is a fucking joke.  It's no wonder we're in the mess we are.  

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not in the disciplinary proceeding it's not.  It's on the Bar to prove the violation of the rule.

And, she could have avoided any trouble with that by alleging it on information and belief, even according to the Michigan court.

So look maybe I’m not tuned in on whatever cluster you’re describing but how does the process not work like this:

The bar would say “she has no evidence or basis for these statements.” Then, it should fall on her to show what she relied on in order to rebut. 

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9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It’s a typo, you couldn’t get in some of those properties for one night at that amount.  It’s referring to them booking and paying for rooms but not actually staying in them.  A donation, but not a donation.  Or bribe.

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I recall stories that trump would ask WH visitors where they were staying in DC.  Say you’re a CEO meeting with Trump, why wouldn’t you stay on his DC hotel and then tell Trump and your 10 employees all loved it.

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1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

Lulz.  The legal profession is a fucking joke.  It's no wonder we're in the mess we are.  

I assume you also think it’s a fucking joke that a criminal defendant is not guilty unless the prosecutor proves it?

How bizarre. How unprecedented. It’s amazing that the legal profession would follow the same standard as the entirety of the country on any state initiated conduct penalty hearing.

 

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I assume you also think it’s a fucking joke that a criminal defendant is not guilty unless the prosecutor proves it?
How bizarre. How unprecedented. It’s amazing that the legal profession would follow the same standard as the entirety of the country on any state initiated conduct penalty hearing.
 


Nope, but clearly lawyers suck at holding other lawyers accountable. You gotta police your own and that doesn't seem to be happening much.
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14 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

So look maybe I’m not tuned in on whatever cluster you’re describing but how does the process not work like this:

The bar would say “she has no evidence or basis for these statements.” Then, it should fall on her to show what she relied on in order to rebut. 

Because, as I said, the Rules are:

Rule 3.03. Candor Toward the Tribunal

(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:

(1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;

* * *

(5) offer or use evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.

And,

Rule 8.04. Misconduct

(a) A lawyer shall not:

* * *

(3) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

There is this,

Rule 3.01. Meritorious Claims and Contentions A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless the lawyer reasonably believes that there is a basis for doing so that is not frivolous.

And that's more in line with what the Michigan court found, as is this:

Rule 3.02. Minimizing the Burdens and Delays of Litigation In the course of litigation, a lawyer shall not take a position that unreasonably increases the costs or other burdens of the case or that unreasonably delays resolution of the matter.

Those were initially pled by the Bar, but for some reason I can't suss out were not addressed in summary judgment.

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If you believe a random letter from a person who tells you they have been beheaded and they heard what they heard on the wind, and you choose to actually believe it, you should be deemed incompetent to be an attorney.  If you don't believe it, but move forward as if you do, you should be be up for discipline due to lying.

The fact that only the second one is actually true is the one that is hard to believe for many of us.

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14 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

I assume you also think it’s a fucking joke that a criminal defendant is not guilty unless the prosecutor proves it?

How bizarre. How unprecedented. It’s amazing that the legal profession would follow the same standard as the entirety of the country on any state initiated conduct penalty hearing.

 

Taking away a person's license to practice their livelihood is serious business, regardless.

As has been said many times, the disciplinary process is mostly focused on protecting the public in the form of clients and potential clients of bad and crooked lawyers.  It's not there to protect opponents from shitty lawyers.

The Bar is not used to fielding general and somewhat abstract complaints from the general public and is mostly disinclined to address them, given that the general public has a terrible understanding of what lawyers really do.  A great deal of the public thinks criminal lawyers are terrible people because they often represent terrible people.  High school civics should have disabused them of that notion, but here we are.

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48 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

The fact that only the second one is actually true is the one that is hard to believe for many of us.

Most cases involve disputes about two different and non-compatible versions of the facts.   

We do not charge 50% of the parties and their lawyers with perjury because one side lost 

So if your client says she had the green light, you still bring the suit even if the other driver and a disinterested eye witness say she had the red. 

You might lose, but you might not.  

The key is, do you know for sure the client is lying when she says  she had the green light?    If the client says she had the red light, but she will say it was green in court, a lawyer bringing that case will likely suffer significant sanctions if that ever comes out.

If there are 10 disinterested witnesses saying your client ran the red light, there is a high likelihood you will lose, but the lawyer does not know what color the light was before the accident. And our job is not to believe the other side ‘s witnesses.    You will not be sanctioned if you bring that case to trial and the judge or jury does not believe your client.

So the question about Sydney’s filings is whether her factual situation resembles the first scenario closer than the second scenario.  Because the facts and the allegations under our system are to be reviewed and determined under the crucible of trial. Whether she is sanctioned will require an investigation of how readily apparent it was that the allegations were false, and more importantly, that she was absolutely aware that they were false when she made them.

Put another way, I should suffer no discipline because I believe my client had the green light when there is no definitive proof that my client is lying and the light was really red.   If however there were three security cameras who caught the accident in real time, and all three showed that my client had the red light, and I knew that, then I should be sanctioned for bringing the suit.
I’m not sure if this helps. I’m just trying to explain that it is not black and white.

 

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

lawyer shall not knowingly

image.gif.d05d0ecf26d9ff8d9c79b5bbedf71391.gif

 

so are we to believe the majority of lawyers are mentally deficient and naive, with an ineffectual surveillance disciplinary system? Or is it more likely the deck is stacked to protect the members of the bar?

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9 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Most cases involve disputes about two different and non-compatible versions of the facts.   

We do not charge 50% of the parties and their lawyers with perjury because one side lost 

So if your client says she had the green light, you still bring the suit even if the other driver and a disinterested eye witness say she had the red. 

You might lose, but you might not.  

The key is, do you know for sure the client is lying when she says  she had the green light?    If the client says she had the red light, but she will say it was green in court, a lawyer bringing that case will likely suffer significant sanctions if that ever comes out.

If there are 10 disinterested witnesses saying your client ran the red light, there is a high likelihood you will lose, but the lawyer does not know what color the light was before the accident. And our job is not to believe the other side ‘s witnesses.    You will not be sanctioned if you bring that case to trial and the judge or jury does not believe your client.

So the question about Sydney’s filings is whether her factual situation resembles the first scenario closer than the second scenario.  Because the facts and the allegations under our system are to be reviewed and determined under the crucible of trial. Whether she is sanctioned will require an investigation of how readily apparent it was that the allegations were false, and more importantly, that she was absolutely aware that they were false when she made them.

Put another way, I should suffer no discipline because I believe my client had the green light when there is no definitive proof that my client is lying and the light was really red.   If however there were three security cameras who caught the accident in real time, and all three showed that my client had the red light, and I knew that, then I should be sanctioned for bringing the suit.
I’m not sure if this helps. I’m just trying to explain that it is not black and white.

 

That makes sense for one trial, but not multiple trials.

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That makes sense for one trial, but not multiple trials.
That is a very good point, but not dispositive.   For example, the Johnson and Johnson talc bankruptcy was filed in North Carolina specifically so that any appeal would go to the fourth circuit. The plaintiffs got the bankruptcy moved to New Jersey. Now the New Jersey bankruptcy court was favorable to Johnson & Johnson, but that was not why it was moved to New Jersey. It was moved to New Jersey because the third circuit has a different standard than the fourth circuit on reviewing a motion to dismiss a bankruptcy.  
The same facts presented by the plaintiffs and won in New Jersey would likely would have lost in North Carolina using the very same facts. To the point, losing in one court would not mean filing in another was wrong even though you knew you lost the first one  under the same facts (assuming two bankruptcies in different circuits)
I do not know the timeline well enough to know when Sidney filed most of the pleadings.   if she filed 10 of them before the first one was thrown out, it is harder to say she knew it was improper.   I also can’t remember if some were first thrown out on some procedural issues rather than on the merits. That too would bear on what she knew, and when she knew about problems with the merits of some allegations. 
Again, I’m not saying she should not be sanctioned, I’m simply saying it is not as cut and dried - legally - as many here suppose.
 
 
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26 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

When people are reckless, they do not deserve to be licensed.  It is serious business, no argument here.  But again, it just shows that lawyers are shit at policing their own.  You should be screaming from the rooftops that we should disbar nutters like her.  It would give you (and your profession) more credibility.  Instead, you're doing the same thing you're doing with Trump.  Telling us all the reasons why nothing will happen.  

Your solve the problems of the Middle East by turning the desert into glass suggestions are noted. 

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22 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

As an aside, a now retired Supreme Court Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, once stated in a dissent in a disciplinary matter that she had to note that there was no seeming rhyme or reason to the penalties that they impose. People doing worse things get less punishment and vice versa. The point was that it was a sort of crapshoot without logic, and therefore without any seeming justice to the process due to the unequal treatment for similar offenses.
I am not saying that it’s OK, but I’m simply telling you that a judge on the highest court in our state said that the grievance process was sort of a kangaroo Court shit show.
And I am here to tell you I think that is an abomination.  It is an area where our court has way too much discretion. Two similar offenses from lawyers with two similar backgrounds should result in roughly the same punishment. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. 

Well was one a young blonde woman?

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