There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth because Trump accounts have been banned on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’m not going to even acknowledge that somehow this is a violation of free speech. Geez people, that’s high school government class. Nor am I going to talk about sedition or inciting violence. That’s for another time. Instead, there are plenty of reasons to close the accounts due to repeated lies, both about the law and the thoroughly debunked claims of fraud or a rigged election. All you need to do is look at four court actions from today.
(1) Trump claimed that Pence had full legal authority to set aside the Electoral College proceeding. That case went to the Supreme Court in Gohmert v. Pence as an emergency matter. The consensus of legal commentary was that this was perhaps the most ludicrous of the 60+ post-election cases. Today the US Supreme Court dismissed Trump’s argument without even bothering to give it a hearing. Here is all they needed to say: “The application for interim relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
(2) In Trump v. Kemp and Raffensperger, Trump moved to dismiss the case today “due to an out of court settlement agreement pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Rp. 41.” That’s a lie. There was no settlement agreement.
(3) If you were watching TV at 2:00 this morning, you heard a number or Congress people arguing that the Pennsylvania courts were all wrong and that the state’s certification should be rejected. Today, in Trump vs. Penna. Bd. of Elections, Trump’s lawyer asked to withdraw as Trump’s counsel, stating that “the client has used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime and the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant and with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”
(4) Finally, there is Wisconsin Voter’s Alliance v. Pence. In this case, the Thomas More Society lawyer took the “let’s throw in the kitchen sink” approach. After being eviscerated by the judge, he dismissed the case. The Court was not amused. Today the Court ordered “that by January 22, 2021, Plaintiffs' counsel shall show cause why the Court should not refer him to the Committee on Grievances for all of the reasons discussed in its recent Memorandum Opinion.”
Lawyers are going to be disciplined for pursuing many of these cases. That’s what happens when you waste the Court’s time with cases that have no merit. Some people, of course, will never be convinced. They are not our concern. [Written on January7, 2021]
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