前特朗普律师西德尼·鲍威尔(Sidney Powell)和她的法律团队周一在一场听证会上与一名联邦法官反复发生冲突，该听证会旨在确定是否有理由对她和其他律师进行制裁，这些律师在密歇根州提起诉讼，理由是他们声称选举试图推翻2020年选举结果的不成功的欺诈行为。
密歇根州州长格雷琴·惠特默(Gretchen Whitmer)、国务卿乔斯林·本森(Jocelyn Benson)和底特律市已要求联邦法官琳达·帕克(Linda V. Parker)制裁鲍威尔、律师林·伍德(Lin Wood)和其他参与密歇根州总统选举结果认证工作的法律团队成员，因为他们对投票违规行为的指控未经证实。
周一的听证会持续了近6个小时，鲍威尔几乎出现在听证会上，听证会很快陷入混乱，双方律师就手头诉讼的是非曲直相互指责，试图阻止对选举的认证，但随后被拒绝。
底特律市的律师大卫·芬克(David Fink)称这起诉讼是“法律界的尴尬”
“这很草率，不可读，在公众面前被嘲笑...它永远不应该被归档，”芬克说。"这些律师的行为应该受到惩罚。"
鲍威尔曾在时任美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的法律团队在因推动古怪的阴谋论而被免职之前，为诉讼和制作诉讼的勤奋进行了有力的辩护，称她“将再次提起同样的投诉。”
三个月后，她提交了一份动议，要求驳回投票机公司Dominion Voting Systems提起的诽谤诉讼，理由是“任何通情达理的人”都不应该这样做相信她的选举理论是“真实的事实陈述”
底特律市也在寻求禁止律师在该地区执业，并希望各律师的地方州律师协会进行自己的调查——这一过程最近导致了律师鲁迪·朱利安尼的临时禁令在纽约从事法律工作。
这项努力如果成功，将标志着对那些试图在法庭上质疑2020年选举的人的首次经济处罚，这些人以选举欺诈或其他选举不当行为为由提出虚假指控。特朗普和他的支持者总共提起了50多起诉讼全国。
在听证会上，帕克法官仔细研究了其中一项诉讼，向鲍威尔和她的团队提出了几十个问题，试图确定是否有必要实施制裁。法官对鲍威尔诉讼的法律依据、各种欺诈指控以及为支持这些指控而提交的证据表示怀疑。
“法院担心这些宣誓书是恶意提交的，”帕克在谈到这起诉讼时说，该诉讼于11月提交，在发现其中存在大量事实错误和不准确之处后，被法官驳回。
为支持欺诈指控而提交的宣誓书有被当地选举官员揭穿，并对诉讼中使用的一些专家证人的证书提出了问题。例如，据《华盛顿邮报》报道，该诉讼的匿名军事情报专家据报道是一名驻达拉斯的信息技术顾问，他甚至从未在军事情报部门工作过。
"作为法院官员，你们中的任何人怎么能出示这种宣誓书呢?"帕克一度询问了一份单独的宣誓书。“我想我从未见过比这更有飞跃的宣誓书。这纯粹是猜测。”
“我们做了大量的尽职调查，”鲍威尔团队的律师霍华德·克莱因汉德勒说。“我们没有提交虚假陈述，”该团队的另一名律师朱莉娅·哈勒尔说。
然而，几位律师试图与诉讼保持距离。伍德是总统的坚定支持者，他在2020年大选后提起了多起诉讼，他表示，他与听证会上争论的诉讼“无关”。
“我的名字写在那里，但我没有任何参与，”他告诉法官，声称他曾向鲍威尔提供一般援助，但没有参与这起诉讼。
另一名律师表示，该团队花在诉讼上的时间总共不超过5个小时。
帕克没有发布决定，也没有给出一个预期的时间表。
Facing possible sanctions, Sidney Powell defends 2020 election lawsuit during heated hearing
Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell and her legal team clashed repeatedly with a federal judge Monday during a hearing to determine if sanctions are warranted against her and other attorneys who filed a lawsuit in Michigan based on false claims ofelectionfraud in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the City of Detroit have requested that Federal Judge Linda V. Parker sanction Powell, attorney Lin Wood, and other members of the legal team that were involved in the efforts to have Michigan's presidential election returns decertified due to unsubstantiated claims of voting irregularities.
Monday's nearly six-hour hearing, at which Powell appeared virtually, quickly spiraled into chaos as attorneys from both sides shouted accusations at each other about the merits of the lawsuit at hand, which sought to block certification of the election and was subsequently denied.
David Fink, a lawyer for the city of Detroit, called the lawsuit "an embarrassment to the legal profession."
"It was sloppy, it was unreadable, it was mocked in the public ... it never should have been filed," Fink said. "These lawyers should be punished for their behavior."
Powell, who served on then-PresidentDonald Trump'slegal team before being removed for pushing outlandish conspiracy theories, vigorously defended the lawsuit and the diligence that went into producing it, saying she "would file these same complaints again."
Her statements came three months after she filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, arguing that "no reasonable person" should havebelieved her election theorieswere "truly statements of fact."
The City of Detroit is also seeking to have the attorneys prohibited from practicing law in the district and wants the various attorneys' local state bar associations to undertake their own investigation -- a process that recently led to attorneyRudy Giuliani’s temporary banfrom practicing law in New York.
The effort, if successful, would mark the first financial penalty against those who sought to challenge the 2020 election in court based on false claims of election fraud or other election misconduct. In all, Trump and his supporters filed over 50 lawsuitsacross the country.
Judge Parker pored over one of those suits during the hearing, peppering Powell and her team with dozens of questions in an effort to determine if sanctions are warranted. The judge expressed skepticism about the legal basis for Powell's suit, the various claims of fraud, and the evidence submitted to support them.
"The court is concerned these affidavits were submitted in bad faith," Parker said of the suit, which was filed in in November and was dismissed by a judge after it was found to be riddled with factual errors and inaccuracies.
A number of the affidavits submitted to support allegations of fraud weredebunked by local election officials, and questions were raised about credentials of a number of the expert witnesses used in the suit. The lawsuit's anonymous military intelligence expert, for example, was reportedly a Dallas-based IT consultant who never even worked in military intelligence, according to a Washington Post report.
"How can any of you as officers of the court present this type of affidavit?" Parker asked at one point about a separate affidavit. "I don't think I've ever seen an affidavit with more leaps. This is pure speculation."
"We did a ton of due diligence," said Howard Kleinhendler, a lawyer on the Powell team. "We did not submit falsehoods," said Julia Haller, another attorney on the team.
Several attorneys, however, attempted to distance themselves from the suit. Wood, a staunch supporter of the president who filed multiple suits in the wake of the 2020 election, said he had "nothing to do" with the suit at issue in the hearing.
"My name was placed on there, but I had no involvement whatsoever," he told the judge, claiming that he had offered general assistance to Powell but was not involved in this suit.
Another attorney said the team had spent no more than five hours total on the suit.
Parker did not issue a decision, or give an expected timeline for one.
