Legal campaign targets Trump’s election claims
Participants want to punish ex-president, create a deterrent
WASHINGTON—The state of Michigan and the city of Detroit have asked a federal judge to sanction attorneys who filed lawsuits that falsely alleged the November vote was fraudulent, the first of several similar efforts expected across the country.
An Atlanta-area prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation into whether pressure that then-President Donald Trump and his allies put on state officials amounted to an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the presidential election.
And defamation lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s allies — the start of what could be a flood of civil litigation related to false claims that the election was rigged and to the subsequent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Although Trump was acquitted by the Senate on a charge that his rhetoric incited the deadly Capitol siege, public officials and private companies are pursuing a multifront legal effort to hold him and his allies accountable in other ways. The actions target the former president and numerous others — including elected officials, media pundits and lawyers — who indulged and echoed his falsehoods that Joe Biden did not win the election.
The goal, according to lawyers and others supportive of such efforts, is to mete out some form of punishment for those who helped undermine confidence in the election results and fueled the attack on the Capitol. But even more, they said they hope to discourage other public officials from rerunning Trump’s strategy of attempting to overturn an election result by sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the vote.
“There has to be some consequence for telling these lies — because when you lie to people, they take action based on what they think is true,” said Philadelphia Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican who received threats after false allegations of fraud in the counting of the city’s votes. “Because it’s such a dangerous new thing that occurred, there has to be some reconciliation. Moving on isn’t enough.”
A federal judge in the District of Columbia late Friday referred one lawyer for possible disciplinary action. It’s not yet clear how far courts will go in pursuing sanctions against lawyers who may have believed in their own conspiracy theories, or whether prosecutors will ultimately bring criminal charges related to the election. The civil litigation could go on for years.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter this month to various state officials indicating that her office is examining a variety of criminal charges related to “attempts to influence” the 2020 election.
In December, Trump asked Georgia’s top state elections investigator to “find the fraud.” Then, in a recorded phone call in January, Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win in the state.
Separately, two election technology companies are pursuing multibilliondollar defamation suits against various Trump allies, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, alleging that they repeatedly told lies about the companies’ products after the election.