Sidney Powell Should Lose Michigan Law License, Detroit Argues

(Bloomberg) -- Detroit officials want former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell to lose her license to practice law in Michigan as punishment for pursuing far-fetched litigation to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.

Powell is the highest-profile leader of a group of lawyers behind the “Kraken,” her reference to the mythical sea monster, that she promised would be unleashed in the courts and prove that Biden beat incumbent Donald Trump only because Democrats engaged in a massive fraud. Powell’s suit in Michigan was knowingly based on lies and is so frivolous that the group behind it requires the harshest penalty, Detroit said Tuesday in a court filing.

“This lawsuit, and the lawsuits filed in the other states, are not just damaging to our democratic experiment, they are also deeply corrosive to the judicial process itself,” lawyers for the city said in a request to U.S. District Judge Linda V. Parker to refer Powell for state bar disciplinary proceedings in Michigan and her home state of Texas.

Read More: Sidney Powell’s ‘Kraken’ Suits Fail in Michigan and Georgia

Parker last month rejected an attempt by Powell and her fellow attorneys to decertify Michigan’s election results. Powell and the group let a three-week period to withdraw their suit lapse. Detroit argues that’s because it’s taken on a new life supporting arguments for Congress to reject Michigan’s electors on Jan. 6. The Detroit lawyers say Trump repeated the false claims in the Michigan lawsuit in his Saturday phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” just enough votes to overturn Biden’s win.

Detroit says Powell and her group, which includes Georgia lawyer L. Lin Wood, should be fined for the amounts of money they collected in their fundraising campaigns challenging the election outcome, as well as the fees and costs Detroit and Michigan have spent defending the case.

The group has “shown a shocking willingness to say anything to overturn the results of this election,” David Fink, a lawyer representing Detroit, wrote in an email.

“It is not OK to misrepresent the facts, and it is not OK to file frivolous claims,” Fink added. “When lawyers abuse the judicial system they should pay a price, and when their behavior is this extreme they should not be allowed to practice in our courts.”

Powell didn’t immediately respond to email and phone messages call seeking comment. Wood didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Trump met with Powell at the White House last month and discussed naming her as a special counsel to investigate allegations of voter fraud, according to people familiar with the matter. She is no longer associated with Trump’s legal team.

The case is King v. Whitmer, 20-cv-13134, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit).

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