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| Judge who dismissed elections fraud lawsuit blasts lawyers, orders them to pay fees. (Page 1/1) |
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rinselberg
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AUG 05, 03:29 PM
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I've got this covered every which way under the sun.
First, the order from U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Colorado, N. Reid Neureiter :
https://reason.com/wp-conte.../08/ColoSanction.pdf
The lawsuit, which alleged an elections fraud conspiracy against Facebook, Dominion Voting Systems and a slew of other individuals and groups, had already been thrown out by this judge.
This new order from the judge, which was filed on Tuesday (August 3), sanctions the lawyers who tried to bring this lawsuit and orders them to "pay up" :
| quote | Reid Nureiter, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado today ordered the two lawyers who brought that lawsuit to pay the attorneys fees for all of the defendants which include state government officials as well as two very rich companies who use very expensive lawyers -- Facebook and Dominion Voting Systems.
The lawsuit also included as individual defendants Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. |
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That is from Lawrence O'Donnell, anchor of MSNBC's "The Last Word", from Wednesday night's broadcast.
"the stuff of which violent insurrections are made"
| quote | LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Mark Zuckerberg uses the most expensive lawyers in the world. So if you try to sue Mark Zuckerberg and you lose, not only will you not win any money but it might cost you a massive amount of money if the court orders you to reimburse Mark Zuckerberg for his attorneys fees.
And that's exactly what happened today to two lawyers in Colorado who filed a massive lawsuit, the biggest in American history asking for $160 billion because the lawsuit said the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump by Mark Zuckerberg.
Reid Nureiter, a federal magistrate judge in Colorado today ordered the two lawyers who brought that lawsuit to pay the attorneys fees for all of the defendants which include state government officials as well as two very rich companies who use very expensive lawyers -- Facebook and Dominion Voting Systems.
The lawsuit also included as individual defendants Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The two lawyers who filed the lawsuit, Gary Fielder and Earnest Walker, claimed the defendants engaged in concerted action to interfere with the 2020 presidential election through a coordinated effort.
So this lawsuit said, "Without a single shred of evidence that Mark Zuckerberg was conspiring with his wife and actively conspiring with the governor of Michigan, the secretary of state of Michigan, the secretary of state of Georgia along with several other individuals and with the Dominion Voting Systems Company."
According to this lawsuit all of those people and companies were constantly communicating with each other and conspiring to steal the election from Donald Trump. The lawyers claimed that they represented 160 million American registered voters.
They claim they represented us. And they asked for $160 billion in damages. These lawyers were trying to trade financial positions with Mark Zuckerberg. They were actually trying to become richer than Mark Zuckerberg with this lawsuit.
Judge Nureiter used careful legal language to describe the lawsuit calling it frivolous, disorganized and fantastical. The judge also said the lawsuit is, quote, "the stuff of which violent insurrections are made".
The judge does have the power to disbar the two lawyers. That is up to the state of Colorado Bar Association. Gary Fielder and Earnest Walker, who dreamed of becoming billionaires through this lawsuit could now be bankrupted by this phony, frivolous lawsuit.
They have no idea tonight how much money they owe Mark Zuckerberg and the other defendants because the lawyers for the defendants have not yet submitted their bills in this case.
Other judges in other jurisdictions around the country are considering the same sort of penalties against Trump lawyers who filed totally false lawsuits on behalf of the Trump campaign.
And speaking of frivolous lawsuits, Donald Trump filed a hopeless lawsuit today trying to prevent the IRS from handing over his tax returns to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Donald Trump will lose that lawsuit because the right of the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the two tax writing committees, their right to see individual tax returns is clearly written in tax law. And it includes absolutely no exceptions. |
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That is from yesterday's (August 4) edition of MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell."
The transcript continues as O'Donnell discusses the ruling with columnist Jonathan Alter and law professor Paul Butler.
| quote | Joining us now is Jonathan Alter, columnist for the "Daily Beast", and Paul Butler law professor at Georgetown University and former federal prosecutor. Both are MSNBC analysts.
And Paul Butler, let me begin with you and this judge sanctioning the lawyers in that Colorado case and forcing them to pay the attorneys fees for all of the defendants, the dozens and dozens of defendants that they charged in their lawsuit.
PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC ANALYST: When a lawyer files a brief she`s required to sign her name. That means that the case is being brought in good faith and supported by evidence. It`s very rare, but when that standard is not met the lawyers can be sanctioned for ethical violations. That`s what happened today.
BUTLER: They`re not being penalized because the judge threw out their case which he did in April. These lawyers are being punished because they should never have filed the case in the first place.
[22:34:57]
BUTLER: And the judge`s opinion goes in because the lawyers claimed that there`d been widespread fraud in the 2020 election a fantasy. The judge says no reasonable lawyer would have brought the case and that the lawsuit was one big conspiracy theory that had the effect of sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the Biden presidency.
O`DONNELL: And Jonathan, the Trump campaign was not involved in this lawsuit in any way. This was two independent hustlers who decided to go for the $160 billion they thought they could get.
But the Trump lawyers in other states are facing exactly the same situation. In fact, Michigan`s governor who was involved in this case in Colorado has brought it to the attention of the judge in another case in Michigan saying look at how this judge found, you should do exactly this to the Trump lawyers.
JONATHAN ALTER, MSNBC ANALYST: Right. There needs to be a counter attack here, Lawrence. Because the stakes are enormously high. It`s not just a frivolous, stupid set of lawsuits. It`s about whether we`re going to become a Banana Republic like something out of the musical "Evita", you know.
Whether these folks will be able to litigate elections many, many months after the elections are over. We can`t have that in this country, so we need to sanction the Banana Republicans, disbar the Banana Republicans and sue their butts off in every jurisdiction.
If you`re a lawyer who wants to do a patriotic act and protect our democracy, get involved in combating these local Trump lawyers who are trying to wreck our democracy. That`s what we need to focus on now.
O`DONNELL: Paul Butler, the judge was referring to what Jonathan was just talking about in the opinion. But the judge did it just in a phrase, just in a portion of a sentence, a reference to the claims made in this case are the stuff that insurrections are made of.
And so this judge was clearly mindful that this kind of lawsuit was part of the fuel of what happened on January 6th. But -- but that was not part of the way the judge was justifying the finding against these lawyers on attorneys fees. That was done meticulously and carefully within the very narrow confines of the ways the law allows that.
BUTLER: That`s right, Lawrence. And one example of that is that the judge said that this lawsuit was a cut and paste job. and he was particularly mad that the lawyers repeated a lie tweeted by then-president Trump that Dominion had deleted almost three million votes.
When the judge asked the lawyers for the basis of that claim they said it came from the president of the United States. The judge said repeating something just because Trump said it was reckless and inflammatory.
O`DONNELL: Yes. And Jonathan, it`s such a fascinating document to read because it is so precise and so careful and so tailored to this particular case. But as Paul just said moments like that and that other phrase the judge used about insurrections, but that very specific judicial -- formal judicial finding that Donald Trump`s tweets are nothing close to legally admissible facts anywhere speaks very loudly outside of the kind of legal confines of that document.
ALTER: Yes. And you know a lot of these judges that are ruling against the Trump campaign are Republicans. So we do have push back here from our democratic institutions. And I think that`s, you know, a bit of good news.
You know, authoritarians have always assumed that democracies are weak and they won`t fight back. And we`re seeing here that judges and litigants and, you know, election equipment companies like Dominion are saying, wait a minute, we`re going to push back and we`re going to push back hard and we`re going to bankrupt you if you keep attacking democracy this way.
This is an extraordinarily important deterrent effect because we can`t have these folks pulling this stuff after the next election or our democracy will be gone. We can`t keep litigating elections. We`ve got to shut this down, so today was very good news.
O`DONNELL: Jonathan Alter and Paul Butler -- thank you both very much for joining our discussion tonight.
ALTER: Thanks, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. |
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Click to show
"Federal judge sanctions lawyers who challenged 2020 election results, calls claims 'fantastical'"
Jordan Williams for The Hill; August 4, 2021.
https://thehill.com/regulat...lection-results?rl=1
"Federal Judge Imposes Sanctions on Lawyers Who Filed Frivolous Election Suit"
Jonathan H. Adler for The Volokh Conspiracy; August 5, 2021.
https://reason.com/volokh/2...olous-election-suit/[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-05-2021).]
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Jake_Dragon
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AUG 05, 04:05 PM
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randye
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AUG 05, 10:04 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by rinselberg:
I've got this covered every which way under the sun.
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UH HUH....SURE
AND YET.....While you are hooting and squealing about a case that will obviously go to the U.S. District Court of Appeals...
THE MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA ELECTION AUDIT GOES ON....
THE FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA ELECTION AUDIT GOES ON.......
Do you have some kind of weird delusion that this obvious "self immolation by propaganda" that you are engaged in is doing you some sort of good here?
Have you EVER ONCE considered the fact that the stupid things you think are due to the stupid people and sources you get your propaganda and opinions from?[This message has been edited by randye (edited 08-05-2021).]
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