Federal judge excoriates Trump lawyers, refers them for disbarment

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© craigslist - Map data © OpenStreetMap A federal judge sent a strong message to each of the so-called “Kraken” lawyers behind litigation to upend the 2O2O election, ordering that they be referred for a professional conduct investigation and “possible suspension or disbarment.” The attorneys include pro-Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell. “This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” Judge Parker wrote in her opinion and order. “It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election. 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.” Though the most well-known faces of the “Kraken” litigation—named after the mythical, octopus-like monsters dramatized in “Clash of the Titans”—Wood and Powell are the not the only attorneys whose law licenses may be in trouble as a result of the ruling. Parker also asked disciplinary committees to investigate Julia Haller, Emily Newman, Brandon Johnson, Howard Kleinhendler, Scott Hagerstrom, Gregory Rohl, and Stefanie Lynn Junttila in their home states. Haller and Newman were former Trump officials, serving in Housing and Urban Development and Homeland Security, respectively. Kleinhendler has taken up multiple causes of the political right after the election, which were ripped apart by federal judges. His lawsuit against Major League Baseball over the cancellation of the All-Star Game also fell flat. The ruling skewers each of the lawyers as having violated their oaths. “Indeed, attorneys take an oath to uphold and honor our legal system,” Parker wrote. “The sanctity of both the courtroom and the litigation process are preserved only when attorneys adhere to this oath and follow the rules, and only when courts impose sanctions when attorneys do not. And despite the haze of confusion, commotion, and chaos counsel intentionally attempted to create by filing this lawsuit, one thing is perfectly clear: Plaintiffs’ attorneys have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way.” That some sanctions were in store for the “Kraken” lawyers was evident during a six-hour hearing in July, when Parker systematically grilled the attorneys on their work verifying affidavits submitted in court. Those included anonymous affidavits by a witness code named “Spyder” and a so-called intelligence expert, both later unmasked by the Washington Post in stories reporting they inflated their credentials. Time and again during the hearing, attorneys like Lin Wood tried to distance themselves from the case rather than claim to have performed any work verifying the allegations. This ruling means that attorneys can be held accountable for using the courts to broadcast false information, and, hopefully, it lets the world know that there was no basis for this lawsuit, and the big lie that this election was stolen has been rejected.