Texas legal regulators have asked a judge to discipline attorney Sidney Powell for filing lawsuits they say were frivolous in support of former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
The disciplinary action is a major development in what has become a nationwide effort to punish pro-Trump lawyers who tried to overturn the November 2020 presidential election result, but is not a final finding of wrongdoing.
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WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) – Texas legal regulators have asked a judge to discipline attorney Sidney Powell for filing lawsuits they say were frivolous in support of former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
The disciplinary action is a major development in what has become a nationwide effort to punish pro-Trump lawyers who tried to overturn the November 2020 presidential election result, but is not a final finding of wrongdoing.
A Texas state court judge will hear the complaint and decide whether to impose a sanction and what that might be.
In the complaint made public on Tuesday, the State Bar of Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline said Powell “had no reasonable basis” for filing lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s victories in key battleground states.
“Respondent (Powell) had no reasonable basis to believe the lawsuits she filed were not frivolous,” the complaint stated and called the suits a violation of a federal ethics rule requiring an attorney’s due diligence before asserting claims in court….
“The Texas bar decision was totally expected, but it is an unfortunate and poor decision by the Bar,” Powell said. “No lawyer could practice law under the rule they would set for me.”