AG Nessel files sanctions against Sidney Powell and three Michigan attorneys
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is pursing sanctions against three Michigan attorneys and one Texas attorney who pursued a lawsuit to overturn Michigan’s 2020 presidential election results.
Michigan attorneys Greg Rohl, Scott Hagerstrom and Stefanie Junttila, along with Texas attorney Sidney Powell, pursued this action in violation of their oaths as attorneys, court rules and rules of professional conduct. Nessel today filed a motion for sanctions with federal Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, seeking to recover attorneys fees totaling approximately $11,000. The office is also in the process of evaluating the filing of complaints with the Attorney Grievance Commission of the State of Michigan and the State Bar of Texas, asking that disciplinary action be taken.
“These lawyers must be held accountable for betraying the trust placed in them as members of the bar,” Nessel said. “Lawyers bear a special responsibility to uphold the rule of law, and these lawyers have done the opposite. By pursuing this suit that had no basis in either fact or law, they have only fueled the fire of distrust in our democracy that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. We are asking the court to enforce the rules and hold these lawyers to their oaths for the protection of the public and to restore faith in our system of law – a system they deliberately undermined.”
Court filings in King v. Whitmer, which sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in Michigan, were legally frivolous and supported by false evidence. The court swiftly denied the plaintiffs any relief on numerous grounds. Similar lawsuits were filed in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona, and all failed. Attorneys Powell and Junttila went so far as to brazenly lie in a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the Michigan Legislature had endorsed competing slates of Republican and Democratic electors, when in reality, the Legislature’s leaders stood by the slate of electors chosen by Michigan’s voters.
