Attorney Sidney Powell, who filed several election-related lawsuits after Nov. 3, said in a court filing Thursday that Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ demands that she be sanctioned and fined are moot because the suit was dismissed months ago.
Evers, a Democrat, filed a request that Powell and former President Donald Trump each pay more than $100,000, claiming that they filed frivolous post-election lawsuits.
Powell, however, said (pdf) in court that it has been two months since “the Seventh Circuit found this case to be moot and remanded it with instructions to vacate this Court’s prior decision.” The filing further said that “during those two months,” Evers did not “make any application for sanctions” against Powell.
“Further,” Powell and her lawyers continued, “the Defendant has not made an effort to reopen this case, which was closed by the Court in December of 2020.”
“Now that the case has been vacated long ago as moot,” it added, “Defendant appears with a non-meritorious motion that is filed out of time and which, under controlling Seventh Circuit precedent, may not be considered by this court.”
The governor’s request “should be struck in its entirety as filed out of time in a closed case over which there is no longer jurisdiction,” said Powell and her lawyers.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court rejected Powell’s election-related lawsuit in Wisconsin and Arizona. Writing on March 1, the high court issued a one-sentence order: “The petitions for writs of mandamus are denied.”
Evers had argued that Powell, who filed third-party lawsuits on behalf of the former president, and her client should pay over $106,000, and Trump and his attorneys should pay $146,000.
“A message must be sent that this type of behavior cannot be tolerated in the judicial system, and that attorneys should avoid these types of frivolous attempts to disenfranchise voters in the future,” attorneys for Evers said in court papers last week.
“This litigation imposed significant costs on the taxpayers of Wisconsin,” the attorneys said about Trump in separate court papers. “Those costs were needless, because Trump’s suit never had any merit, this litigation was precluded by exclusive state-court proceedings, and the costs were exacerbated by strategic choices made by Trump and his lawyers.”
William Bock, a Trump attorney, told Reuters that his client denies the claims.
“They’re attacking in the pleadings my motives and the motives of my partners, of which they know nothing,” Bock said. “The statements made about our motives were absolutely false.”
In November, Powell appeared alongside Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis at a press conference announcing post-election lawsuits. Days later, Giuliani confirmed that Powell was not part of their team.
