Sometimes it can feel that in politics, the bad guys don’t see consequences. But this week, that was very much not the case. So let’s get into it.
Kraken lawyers
You may recall that a bunch of Trump lawyers had a sanctions hearing earlier this summer regarding the “Kraken” lawsuit they filed in Michigan. (It was one of many lawsuits they filed after the 2020 election arguing that the election results should be thrown out.) Well, on Wednesday, US District Judge Linda Parker not only leveled sanctions at Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and 7 other attorneys, but she did it in a scathing 110 page opinion. She also required that they all take a number of legal education courses AND she is sending her opinion to each of the state bar associations where the lawyers have a license to recommend that they be disbarred.
A key quote: The judge said the lawsuit “was never about fraud—it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.” You can read the full opinion–which is a great read– HERE.
Whitmer kidnapping plot
One of the men who planned and attempted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer last year was sentenced this week. Ty Garbin is the only one in the group to plead guilty and cooperated with the prosecutors, providing a lot of material evidence and information as they prepare to take the other defendants to trial. Garbin was sentenced to 75 months in prison for “providing material support for terrorist acts and felony firearms charges,” he will serve 3 years on probation after that, pays a fine, must seek substance abuse treatment, and cannot use computers without authorization.
North Carolina absentee ballot case
If you’ve been a longtime Political Charge reader, you’ll remember me writing a number of posts following the 2018 midterms because of the absentee ballot scandal in the North Carolina 9th district election. In a nutshell, the Republican candidate had hired a sketchy guy named Leslie McCrae Dowless who hired people to tamper with over 1000 ballots. The Republican won but election data analysts immediately called out the weird patterns in the return of absentee ballots (like one precinct having nearly 100% absentee ballots for the GOP candidate, and another precinct showing a drastically lower return rate of ballots from African-American voters than neighboring precincts). An investigation was launched immediately and the election board refused to certify the results of the race. In the end, the scandal was so bad that they ordered a new election.
McCrae Dowless was supposed to be sentenced this week but the morning of his hearing, he had a massive stroke and was sent to the hospital, where he remains. All that to say, his day in court is coming.
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Nice to see justice actually prevail every now and then.
I never heard of that North Caroline fiasco up here in northern Canada. May I ask what happened to the Republican candidate who hired the hapless Dowless. If nothing, then the system has failed again. If a person hires an assassin, who murders someone, the hirer is just as guilty of murder as the hiree. Since you did not mention the hirer in this case, I’m guessing he or she got their fingers slapped.
The same goes for the case of the lawyers in Michigan. They were hired by someone,, possibly by someone nick-named Trumelstiltorangeskin, who still to this day has not been held to account for hiring them to do his dirty work for him.He cannot be disbarred, but he can be fined the total costs of the court cases, with punitive damages equal to or exceeding his present wealth and possible future earnings to make sure he never is able to try such stupid lawsuits ever again. That fine amount should include all property and businesses, leaving him and his family to live on the streets, homeless, like so many people he has made homeless in his lifetime. Turnabout is fair play, after all.
Mark Harris, the GOP candidate, was investigated, but it doesn’t sound like they turned up sufficient evidence to charge him. That said, his life was ruined, so there’s something.
As for Trump, he’s exactly the kind of guy who gets other people to do his dirty work. My guess is he’ll be hard to charge. But we can bleed him dry financially.
“Bleed[ing] him dry ginancially” would be acceptable to me.
Super interesting podcast that delves into the NC shenanigans as the lastest in the “serial” podcast series. Worth a listen! Sorry to hear about Dowless’ stroke.