The US Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear an appeal from a group of attorneys connected to former president Donald Trump. The team, led by Sidney Powell, was challenging sanctions placed upon them for what was deemed an abuse of the Michigan state legal system during a 2020 election fraud lawsuit.
The case, Powell v. Whitmer, commenced in 2020 following a record-high voter turnout in Michigan for then-candidate, now President Joe Biden. Powell and the rest of Trump’s legal team challenged these results, especially the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots submitted due to COVID-19.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and several other defendants requested the court impose sanctions against Powell and her team. They argued that the lawsuit unnecessarily and vexatiously prolonged the proceedings and further claimed that Powell knew or should have known that their legal claims were baseless.
The US District Court Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division largely sided with Whitmer and the defendants. The court fined Powell and several other members of the Trump legal team, stating, in regards to the election fraud lawsuit, that it “should never have been filed.”
On appeal, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals largely affirmed the district court’s sanction but did reduce the overall monetary sanctions to around $150,000. Following this, Powell and several of the attorneys filed a petition for certiorari to the US Supreme Court, which was then declined.
The sanctions case isn’t the only legal trouble Powell is currently facing. In January 2021, Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit against her. In March 2022, the Texas State Bar Association filed a complaint against Powell, alleging that she engaged in misconduct. And in 2023, Powell pleaded guilty to six criminal charges in a Georgia case involving former president Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election.
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