I just saw this in an article by Forbes posted a few hours ago
Updated Dec 7, 2020, 12:03pm EST
TOPLINE A Michigan lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s election results led by former Trump advisor Sidney Powell suffered a key failure in federal court Monday, as the judge denounced her conspiracy theories based around Dominion voting machines as “nothing but speculation and conjecture,” marking the first of Powell’s battleground state lawsuits to fail in court and the latest in a string of losses in the GOP’s post-election cases challenging President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
KEY FACTS
Powell filed lawsuits in Michigan and other battleground states alleging widespread fraud that justifies de-certifying the state’s election results, claiming WITHOUT EVIDENCE that machines from Dominion Voting Systems flipped votes from President Donald Trump to Biden.
U.S. District Court Judge Linda V. Parker made clear in her ruling, which rejected Powell’s request for injunctive relief, that those conspiracy theories were not based on any ACTUAL EVIDENCE, noting that the plaintiffs did not actually give PROOF that any votes were flipped, but rather brought “an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation that such alterations were possible.”
“To be perfectly clear, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim is not supported by any allegation that Defendants’ alleged schemes caused votes for President Trump to be changed to votes for Vice President Biden,” Parker wrote, noting their affidavits used words like “believe” and “may” that did not substantively show any wrongdoing took place.
Powell’s case also failed on a number of other grounds, including being brought too late, with Parker writing the case “represents well the phrase: ‘this ship has sailed.’”
The judge noted that “much of” the relief the GOP plaintiffs sought “is beyond the power of this Court,” concluding that the lawsuit “seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek…and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government.”
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters,” Parker wrote. “This, the Court cannot, and will not, do. The People have spoken.”
CHIEF CRITIC
Attorney Gregory Rohl, who is working with Powell on the case, told the Detroit Free Press Monday the legal team had not yet decided whether it would appeal the case, but he was “prepared to do so.” “I believe that our projected path to resolution of this issue for Michigan and national voters always contemplated ultimate review by” the U.S. Supreme Court, Rohl said.
KEY BACKGROUND
Powell launched lawsuits on behalf of GOP plaintiffs in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona weeks after Election Day, after the former Trump lawyer began spreading the debunked Dominion conspiracy theory and the Trump campaign distanced themselves from Powell. Powell’s lawsuits have already been marked by a series of issues, with numerous errors throughout the lawyer’s court filings including major mistakes like naming plaintiffs who had not actually agreed to join the lawsuit. Soon after the Michigan court ruling, a judge in Georgia also struck down Powell’s case there, dismissing the case based on a number of issues including lack of standing. The Michigan lawsuit is also part of a broader effort by the Trump campaign and GOP to challenge Biden’s victories in battleground states. That legal effort has been so far almost wholly unsuccessful, with the GOP losing or dropping 47 cases thus far, and only notching one minor win.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Powell’s cases in Wisconsin and Arizona are still ongoing, with hearings set to take place Monday in Georgia and Tuesday in Arizona. The lawyer’s loss in Michigan likely ends the biggest ongoing legal challenge in the battleground state, whose election results have already been certified, though there is still another pending case in which GOP plaintiffs are seeking an audit of some election results.
The judge said Powell’s voter fraud claims were an “amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation.”
www.forbes.com