“Mess with The Mitten, expect to get slapped.”
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, a host of friends reached out to me aghast at President Trump’s efforts to overturn or cast doubt on the election through our nation’s courts. Common questions sounded along the lines of “this isn’t legal, right?” or “are these lawyers are going to be disbarred?” I did my best to assure them that this abuse of judicial process as conspiratorial broadcasting would ultimately bare consequences. I also noted, however, that they should be patient and, unfortunately, this would take time. Never a particularly satisfying thing to hear.
Now, approximately nine months later, I am happy to report that:
(a) President Trump’s “Kraken” team, including, among others, L. Lin Wood and Sydney Powell, have been (i) referred for bar investigation and disciplinary action in every jurisdiction they practice; (ii) ordered to pay the State of Michigan* and the City of Detroit’s attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in defending one particularly frivolous lawsuit (certainly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars); and (iii) ordered to take legal education on the basics of pleadings practice and election law.
(b) Rudy Giuliani’s license to practice law has been suspended in New York State and the District of Columbia. It has also been widely reported that President Trump — in what is an observable pattern in his business dealings — rewarded Giuliani for his self-destructive loyalty by breaking his word and refusing to pay his legal fees.
(c) President Trump, and his surrogates, ultimately suffered more than eighty-six humiliating losses in our nation’s state and federal courts. The dismissal of several of these baseless lawsuits coming from judges appointed to the bench by President Trump himself.
It is never as exciting to restore something beautiful as it is to desecrate it. However, today is a good day for the patient and principled. As Plutarch said, “[t]he wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”
* “Mess with The Mitten, expect to get slapped.
