Legal Warfare, the 2020 Election and Sidney Powell
Breaking down the legal attacks on Sidney Powell-Part One
(This series of articles originally ran at Stream.org as a five part series. See Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. The articles are modified here and presented in two parts.)
In the three-plus years since the 2020 Presidential Election, Democrats and Never Trumpers waged law fare campaigns against conservative lawyers, judges, news personalities and politicians all over the Country. From the failed efforts to disqualify President Trump from the Presidential ballot, to the illegitimate Federal and State indictments of President Trump, to the indictments of Republican Alternate Electors in several swing states, to the efforts to disbar or discipline attorneys, these attacks take many forms. One conservative lawyer bore the brunt of the leftist law fare avalanche like few others. That lawyer’s name is Sidney Powell. The sheer number, scope and vitriolic nature of the law fare waged against Sidney Powell in the aftermath of her 2020 election challenges is eclipsed only by the attacks on President Trump himself.
Sidney Powell, the Target
A closer look at the attacks on Sidney Powell reveals she is the victim of bar complaints from people who never consulted with her, who did not even know her and whom she never represented. Several of the bar complaints are from leftist politicians who habitually and brazenly disregard the truth and the law. As is so often the case in today’s weaponized legal environment, some of the attacks emanate from the two-tiered justice system, where conservative lawyers like Sidney Powell (and Republicans generally) are sanctioned without the testimony of a single witness. Additionally, still more of the attacks are lawsuits seeking grotesque amounts of damages.
The law fare being waged against Sidney Powell is too vast and complex to be adequately addressed in a single article. This series will begin by providing background on Sidney Powell and her accomplishments in the legal field, followed by a general description of her involvement in post-election lawsuits in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election, followed by an outline of the law fare itself. Next, after a review of the election irregularities in Michigan, the Michigan sanctions order will be covered, followed by a separate article exploring the ethics complaints and defamation suits against Sidney Powell. I was privileged to have the opportunity to communicate directly with Sidney Powell for these articles and, whenever possible, her thoughts and observations are included.
Who is Sidney Powell?
Most readers will know Sidney Powell as the attorney who represented former Trump National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and obtained the government’s dismissal of the charges against him. However, her credentials go far beyond the representation of high-profile clients. For 10 years, from 1978 to 1988, Powell served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western and Northern Districts of Texas and the Eastern District of Virginia. She was appellate section chief for the sprawling Western District of Texas and then the Northern District of Texas. During that time, Powell represented the United States in over three hundred appeals. In private practice, Powell handles complex civil and criminal litigation in Federal courts, served as lead in counsel in a couple hundred more appeals resulting in over 180 reported appellate opinions and served as a past president of the Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. She is also a published author. For these reasons, when Sidney Powell appeared on media broadcasts after the Presidential Election in 2020, talking about the election irregularities she and others witnessed and the need to challenge the election results in several states, many people knew her sterling reputation.
Powell made numerous television appearances and gave speeches discussing the election, the claims made in the four lawsuits she filed and the effort to obtain evidence to determine who actually won the election. Within a few weeks of the November 3, 2020, Presidential Election, Sidney Powell, along with several other attorneys, filed election challenges in Federal Courts in Georgia and Michigan, as well as in Wisconsin and Arizona. While the claims made in those four massive lawsuits are beyond the scope of this article, readers will undoubtedly know the election challenges Powell filed were not successful.
Overview of the Attacks on Sidney Powell
By December 1, 2020, before a single hearing was held in any of the suits Powell filed, the first of many ethics complaints was filed against Powell with the Texas State Bar. By December 2, 2020, two more ethics complaints were filed against Powell in Texas. Eventually, 19 bar complaints were filed against Sidney Powell in Texas alone, with others filed in Michigan and Arizona, including complaints filed by the leftist Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State of Michigan. You read that right, the Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, filed a bar complaint against Sidney Powell. (This is the same Dana Nessel whose office failed to publicly report on, or issue any warnings to county clerks about, an investigation into fraudulent voter registrations submitted in Muskegon, Michigan, in October 2020, by a company working with the Biden campaign and Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee.) The Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, filed complaints as well.
This is the same MI SOS Benson whose unlawful instruction to Michigan county clerks to radically loosen signature verification on absentee ballots probably delivered the State of Michigan to Joseph Biden and the same Governor Whitmer who signed executive orders banning the sale of garden seeds and supplies in many Michigan stores during the COVID pandemic only to falsely claim later the order was made in February when "no one was planting anyway", when in truth the restriction issued in April 2020. The hubris of these politicians is boundless.
The defamation suits followed closely behind the bar complaints. In early December 2020, Eric Coomer, then the Director of Product Strategy and Security for Dominion Voting Systems sued multiple Defendants, including Sidney Powell, in Colorado alleging defamation claims. In January 2021, Sidney Powell was sued in Washington, D.C., by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation seeking $1.3 billion in damages. In February 2021, Smartmatic sued multiple Defendants, including Sidney Powell, seeking $2.7 billion in damages for defamation.
The effort to sanction Ms. Powell and her co-counsel also followed on the heels of the bar complaints. In December 2020, the City of Detroit, Michigan, filed a motion for sanctions against Sidney Powell in Federal Court in Michigan. Shortly thereafter, Michigan Attorney General Nessel, on behalf of the Michigan Governor and Michigan Secretary of State, filed for sanctions against Powell. In March 2021, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers filed a Motion for Sanctions against Powell in Federal Court in Wisconsin.
While the sanctions effort in Wisconsin failed, in August 2021, the Federal judge presiding over the Michigan election challenge filed by Sidney Powell imposed sanctions on Powell and her co-counsel ordering them to pay over $175,000.00 in attorney fees and costs to the other parties in the case. Thereafter, in November 2021, Smartmatic filed the same lawsuit it filed in New York against Sidney Powell in Washington, D.C., again seeking $2.7 billion in damages. Then in December 2021, a Venezuelan businessman, Majed Khalil, sued Sidney Powell in New York seeking damages for alleged defamation (these claims related to allegations made by Powell involving Dominion and Smartmatic). Finally, in August 2023, Sidney Powell was indicted with former President Trump and others in the mammoth RICO case in Fulton County, Georgia.
This is a brief summary of the legal warfare waged on Sidney Powell since the 2020 Presidential election. Still, this short recitation of the law fare attacks on Powell paints a revealing picture of the Left’s willingness to pull out all the stops to attack her. I will address each of these categorical attacks on Sidney Powell, starting with the Michigan Federal Court sanctions order.
Election Irregularities in Michigan in 2020
In preparation for discussing the Michigan sanctions order against Sidney Powell and her co-counsel, a review of some of the irregularities in the 2020 Michigan Presidential election is in order. These issues should be kept in mind when one reviews the Michigan election suit filed by Sidney Powell and the Court’s sanctions order. A brief recap of some of the more important issues with the election will inform readers:
Absentee ballot applications sent to every voter. In May 2020, Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced that every registered voter in the State would receive an absentee ballot application in the mail; (The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee concluded this process, which resulted in ballot applications going to “. . . long deceased family members, those who moved to other states or persons never present at that address . . . ,” presented “. . . a clear vulnerability for fraud that may be undetected, if the actual voter does not vote at all.” See MI Senate Report, pgs. 10-11.)
Michigan SOS unlawfully loosened signature verification standards. Thereafter, in October 2020, MI SOS Benson issued guidance to Michigan County Clerks about signature verification on absentee ballots, creating a “presumption” the voter’s absentee ballot signature is the voter’s genuine signature and that the signature should be treated as valid if there are “any redeeming qualities” in the signature; (This “guidance” was later declared invalid by a Michigan court due to Benson’s failure to follow the Administrative Procedure Act when it was issued.)
Over 3 million absentee ballots. In the 2020 Presidential Election in Michigan 57% of the ballots cast were absentee ballots (that is roughly 3.3 million absentee ballots).
Less than 1,500 absentee ballots rejected due to signature mismatch. Despite the radical expansion of absentee balloting in Michigan in 2020, only 15,302 absentee ballots out of 3.3 million cast were rejected due to failure to comply with the law. Only 9.5% of those 15,302 rejected ballots, literally less than 1,500 ballots, were rejected due to “signature mismatch.” You read that right. Out of 3.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 Michigan Presidential Election, less than 1,500 were rejected because the signature on the ballot failed to match the voter’s signature in the voter file. That means roughly 1 absentee ballot out of every 2,300 was rejected due to signature mismatch. The unlawful guidance issued by the Michigan Secretary of State in October 2020 essentially gutted signature verification.
Private funding of MI Democrat election strongholds by billionaire. At the same time, a private organization funded largely by Facebook Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg funneled millions of dollars in private funding to overwhelmingly Democrat cities and counties all over America, including over $7.6 million in Michigan, to promote drop boxes, absentee ballots, absentee ballot curing and other efforts.
Private groups pushed MI SOS to send absentee ballot applications. Additional investigation determined these private funding groups worked to influence Michigan Secretary of State Benson to send absentee ballots to every voter in the State, just as she ultimately did.
Same day voter registration. In 2018, the State of Michigan passed same day voter registration. The 2020 election was the first Presidential Election after this change in the law and roughly 28,000 new MI voters registered on Election Day.
Fraudulent voter registrations. In October 2020, a company called GBI Strategies submitted fraudulent or unlawful voter registration applications in Muskegon, Michigan. The company was paid millions of dollars in the 2020 election cycle by Democrat groups, including the Biden campaign and Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee. Yet, the Michigan Attorney General did not even reveal the investigation to the public (she was too busy issuing public statements about the MI Gov. Whitmer kidnapping entrapment plot as an “October surprise.”)
Dominion in Detroit. Dominion Voting Systems election hardware and software used in Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan, is similar, if not the same, as what a federal judge in Georgia found to be of questionable reliability.
Republican poll watchers threatened and intimidated
In addition to the issues noted above, Republican poll watchers and election observers reported extensive abuse, intimidation, threats and harassment from election workers in Detroit, Michigan during the election. Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity highlighted the Detroit election workers abuse of Republican poll watchers in its report, TCF Timeline: The 2020 General Election in Detroit as follows:
Please take the time to review the TCF Timeline Report linked above. You will marvel at the abuse of Republican poll watchers by election workers in the Democrat stronghold, Detroit. How is this type of abuse by elections officials allowed?
There are plenty of additional issues with the Presidential Election in Michigan in 2020, but this handful of issues fueled the serious concerns people of all political persuasions had with the legitimacy of the vote leading up to Election Day. Republicans everywhere knew the Democrats and the far left would pull out all of the stops to deliver the White House to the Democrats in November 2020. When the concerns about the election went beyond theoretical, Sidney Powell tried to do something about it. This effort culminated in four federal election lawsuits, including the one filed in Michigan. The suit filed in Michigan ultimately resulted in a $175,000.00 sanctions order against Sidney Powell and her co-counsel. The actual sanctions order is the subject of the next article in this series.
(My new book Fake News Exposed: 25 of the Worst Media Lies about Conservatives, Guns, COVID and Everything Else is out at Amazon. You may also pick up a copy of one of my other books at Amazon as well.)
I had no idea what they’ve done to Sidney Powell. She’s never discussed it on “Defending the Republic.” She’s an incredible woman! Thanks for giving us the details.
Thanks Daniel. I have 2 major issues/questions regarding Powell.
1. Why did she aggressively push the "Kraken" narrative after the 2020 election? She was the one actively promoting a story that there was a CIA gunfight in Europe where the CIA head was injured or something. Smells like she was being used to push out disinformation that would discredit the legitimate election issues.
2. Why did she falsely include Lin Wood in her lawsuits? Wood had to publicly disavow himself and clearly state he was never part of her lawsuits, and Powell finally removed his name. Wood is a prolific attorney and is highly suspicious of Powell (probably justified).
Finally, I'm also not a fan of Flynn. He and his supporters have been actively attacking and threatening Lin Wood and his family. Add that to Flynn leading a church in a new age (Satanic?) prayer of the seven rays of light, and he's not a person I trust.