'The stuff of which violent insurrections are made:' Federal judge punishes Colorado lawyers for 2020 election lawsuit
Rosalind Helderman
4-5 minutes
A federal judge in Colorado has disciplined two lawyers who filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election late last year, finding that the case was "frivolous," "not warranted by existing law" and filed "in bad faith."
In a scathing 68-page opinion, Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter found that the lawyers made little effort to corroborate information they had included in the suit, which argued there had been a vast national conspiracy to steal the election from President Donald Trump.
He particularly called out the duo, Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker, for quoting Trump in their legal filing, which cited a presidential tweet that claimed without evidence that voting machines manufactured by the company Dominion Voting Systems had "deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide." Neureiter called that allegation "highly disputed and inflammatory" and said the lawyers made no efforts to verify it.
The two lawyers filed the case as a class action on behalf of 160 million American voters, alleging a complicated plot engineered by Dominion; Facebook; its founder Mark Zuckerberg; his wife, Priscilla Chan; and elected officials in four states. They had sought $160 billion in damages.
The case was dismissed in April, but Neureiter ruled that the attorneys had violated their ethical obligations by lodging it in the first place and by peppering their motions with wild allegations that they had made little effort to substantiate. Legal rules prohibit attorneys from clogging the court systems with frivolous motions or from filing information that is not true.
Calling the suit "one enormous conspiracy theory," Neureiter ordered that the duo must pay the legal fees of all the individuals and companies they had sued — 18 separate entities in all — as a way to deter future similar cases.
Neureiter ordered the defendants to compile records showing how much time they had spent on the case and their typical billing rates to determining how much the two lawyers will owe.
"In short, this was no slip-and-fall at the local grocery store," wrote Neureiter, who was appointed as a magistrate judge by other judges. "Albeit disorganized and fantastical, the Complaint's allegations are extraordinarily serious and, if accepted as true by large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made."
While the lawyers attached affidavits from various people who alleged the election had been rigged — a common tactic of Trump supporters in the dozens of challenges filed in the months after the election — Neureiter said a close examination of the testimony showed it was "notable only in demonstrating no firsthand knowledge by any Plaintiff of any election fraud, misconduct, or malfeasance."
In an email, Fielder said the two planned to appeal the judge's order.
"We were never acting in bad faith," he wrote. He said the case was intended to seek "a peaceful and legal method" to address what he termed "the mountain of truthful and factual allegations in our complaint."
He added: "The case has nothing to do with Donald Trump, and is concerned only with the integrity of our Presidential elections."
Wednesday's order came as the judicial system nationally has been grappling with how to hold accountable the lawyers who filed flimsy challenges to the election.
In June, a panel of judges in New York suspended the law license of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, arguing that Trump's personal lawyer had "communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements" that amounted to an ongoing threat to the public. Giuliani's lawyers have said they are confident his license will be restored after a hearing.
Last month, a federal judge in Michigan spent nearly six hours skeptically questioning a group of nine lawyers, including pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, as she sought to determine whether to sanction them over a lawsuit that sought to overturn President Biden's win in that state. A ruling is expected in that matter soon.
Other disciplinary actions are pending before a Wisconsin judge and in front of bar associations in multiple states.
The Justice Department on Tuesday ordered the forfeiture of an ancient tablet containing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh from craft stores giant Hobby Lobby, which the DOJ said purchased the tablet after it was smuggled into the U.S. and later put it on display at a biblical-themed museum.
A Hobby Lobby store is seen on June 30, 2014 in Plantation, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty ... [+]
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Key Facts
The approximately 3,600-year-old tablet, known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, contains a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh—a Sumerian poem that is among the oldest known pieces of literature.
The tablet was apparently looted from Iraq before the DOJ said it was purchased in 2003 by an antiquities dealer—which the DOJ has not named—and later sold to Hobby Lobby in 2014.
According to the DOJ, Hobby Lobby then displayed the tablet at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., which Hobby Lobby's owners largely fund.
Federal agents seized the tablet in 2019 as part of the investigation into its arrival in the U.S., and the DOJ said the museum has cooperated with the investigation.
Hobby Lobby also consented to Tuesday's forfeiture order.
Big Number
More than $1.6 million. That's how much prosecutors said Hobby Lobby paid for the 5-by-6 inch tablet, according to NPR.
Crucial Quote
"Thwarting trade in smuggled goods by seizing and forfeiting an ancient artifact shows the department's dedication to using all available tools, including forfeiture, to ensure justice," said Kenneth Polite, the top prosecutor in the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
Key Background
Prosecutors claim Hobby Lobby was not aware the tablet was taken illegally, since the antiquities dealer that brought the tablet to the U.S. used a fake provenance letter stating that the tablet was found inside a box of bronze fragments purchased in 1981. But this is far from the first time Hobby Lobby's been at the center of a smuggling scandal. Over the past few years, Hobby Lobby has turned over thousands of artifacts believed to have come into the U.S. through illicit means. In 2017, Hobby Lobby agreed to pay the U.S. government a fine of $3 million and forfeit more than 5,500 artifacts believed to have been looted from Iraq. And last year, Hobby Lobby president Steve Green agreed to turn over some 11,500 artifacts to the Iraqi and Egyptian governments after acknowledging he didn't know how the pieces came to the U.S., saying he "knew little about the world of collecting." All of the artifacts were intended to be housed at the Museum of the Bible.
Tangent
Hobby Lobby filed a lawsuit against Christie's auction house in 2020, claiming "deceitful and fraudulent conduct" in selling Hobby Lobby the tablet. Christie's responded by saying any illegal activity involved with the piece "predated Christie's involvement," according to The New York Times.
Surprising Fact
The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet gets its name because its inscription describes the story's hero telling his mother about recent dreams. She interprets them as meaning a new friend will arrive, saying: "You will see him and your heart will laugh."
A NASA software engineer for 23 years (retired), Silicon Valley software engineer for 36+years, Egyptology hobbyist and ARCE-NC board of directors member for more than 25 years, reporter and copy editor for the Kansas City Star and Louisville Courier-Journal for 6 years. Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Kappa Tau Alpha, Heritage Registry of Who's Who. I favor open source development, Linux, net neutrality, medical care as a right and not a privilege, the ACLU, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech.
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