I spent a lot of Monday midday sitting in on the hearing in a federal court in Michigan held to consider professional sanctions against the Kraken Krewe, the crack legal team assembled by the former president*’s campaign to overturn the election results in that state. Judge Linda Parker was already on her last nerve with the Krewe’s nonsense when their lawyer, Donald Campbell, interrupted the closing remarks of David Fink, who was there representing the city of Detroit—and, by extension, anyone with a functional cerebral cortex. Fink just had pointed out that all of the insane lawsuits brought by the Trump forces played a part in the drama that ended up in the Capitol on January 6. Campbell interrupted Fink, and the court reporter had had enough.
“We have been here since 8:30 this morning,” she thundered, and then ripped all present for talking over each other and making her job 10 times harder than it had to be, adding that if they wanted a transcript that didn’t look like it was typed by drunken marmosets, they should knock that shit off immediately. (I’m paraphrasing,) Judge Linda Parker, who also was fed up, let her court reporter roll.
Judge Parker spent those hours grilling the Kraken Krewe about the fake lawsuits they brought on the basis of affidavits that Parker believed were made of supposition and fairy dust. On one memorable occasion, after looking over one of the affadavits, Parker said:
This is really fantastical. How could any of you as officers of the court submit this affidavit?
The Kraken Krewe kept answering that, hey, these people were willing to swear out affidavits so, hey, what were the lawyers supposed to do? This really was the crux of the proceedings. It became clear fairly quickly that Judge Parker believes that these lawyers presented anything anyone was willing to swear to without checking if the affiants knew anything about anything. (One witness, whom the Kraken Krewe referred to as having worked for military Intelligence, turned out to be a mechanic.) It certainly was clear to Lin Wood, one of the loudest and most prominent members of the Krewe. He spent most of his time at the hearing trying to throw all the others under the entire train. I kept waiting to hear a cock crow.
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But the day’s finest moment came when Campbell was defending himself and his clients against the charge that their actions helped create the climate for the insurrection. He told the court:
Civil complaints do not foment insurrections.
Reached in the Beyond, Dred Scott declined comment.
The Kraken has been released alright, but while Lin Wood backs away slowly, Trump's most egregious lawyer is still pushing The Big Lie.
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