A federal judge referred a Minneapolis attorney to the Committee on Grievances for possible sanctions after finding the lawsuit he filed to overturn presidential election results in Wisconsin and four other states smacks of “political gamesmanship.”
Washington, D.C.-based Judge James Boasberg had earlier ordered attorney Erick Kaardal to provide reasons why he shouldn’t face possible sanctions in the lawsuit he filed. Other plaintiffs included the Wisconsin Voters Alliance and two GOP state lawmakers.
Boasberg wrote in Friday’s decision that he was unpersuaded about the “flimsiness of the underlying basis for the suit.” What’s more, he wrote Kaardal’s response spent more than 70 pages on “irrelevant allegations of fraud” and was nothing more than “political grandstanding.”
Dozens of suits were filed to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election in several swing states, including Wisconsin. Kaardal is one of the few attorneys involved in the dismissed cases to face possible consequences for filing the suits. Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, meanwhile, now faces a $1.3 billion defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems for the conspiracy theories against the company’s machines that she incorporated into some of her lawsuits, including one she filed in Wisconsin.
Kaardal was involved in several legal actions related to the Wisconsin election, including representing entertainer Kanye West in his unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the Elections Commission’s ruling he filed his nomination papers too late to qualify for the presidential ballot. He also represented the Wisconsin Voting Alliance in a lawsuit challenging private grants that some Wisconsin cities used to cover the costs of putting on the election amid a pandemic.
The suit challenging the results in five states that Joe Biden won argued state legislatures should’ve met after the election to certify Electoral College votes. In his ruling rejecting the suit last month, Boasberg wrote that argument “lies somewhere between a willful misreading of the Constitution and fantasy.”
In Friday’s recommendation to the grievance committee, which oversees complaints against attorneys, Boasberg questioned the timing of the suit, which was filed just two weeks before Congress met Jan. 6 to certify the results. He added it suggested the lawsuit was “political gamesmanship.” He added Kaardal was still in the process of serving defendants Jan. 4, suggesting the suit was meant to “undermine a legitimate presidential election.”
“When any counsel seeks to target processes at the heart of our democracy, the Committee may well conclude that they are required to act with far more diligence and good faith than existed here,” Boasberg wrote.
