sidney powell
© REUTERS / ELIJAH NOUVELAGE
After the 3 November vote, Trump-supporting lawyer Sidney Powell promised to "release the Kraken" and expose a "Biblical" plot by Democrats, Silicon Valley, the media and foreign actors including late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to rob Donald Trump of victory. Judges in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin threw out her cases.

The city of Detroit has asked a federal judge to disbar Sidney Powell, Georgia-based lawyer Lin Wood, and other members of the "Kraken" legal team for "false and frivolous claims" made "while seeking relief with massive implications for our democracy." City authorities cite a lack of withdrawals or corrections to "false factual allegations and frivolous legal theories in their pleadings" to overturn election results.

The case, filed Tuesday, comes following the announcement earlier this week by Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos that his company would be filing a separate lawsuit against Powell over her claim that Dominion machines were used to manipulate election results in Joe Biden's favour.


In late November, Powell filed a lawsuit against Michigan state officials, including Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, accusing them of serious violations of the state's election code and asking them to decertify election results. US District Judge Linda Parker threw the case out in December, accusing Powell's team of basing their allegations on "theories, conjecture, and speculation" and of seeking to undermine the public's "faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government."

Powell filed similar cases in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, with state courts similarly throwing them out.

Detroit lawyers want Parker to refer Powell for state bar disciplinary proceedings in Michigan and Texas, her home state, suggesting her lawsuits "are not just damaging to our democratic experiment" but "deeply corrosive to the judicial process itself." Along with the disbarring, Detroit wants Powell and company to be deprived of monies they collected during their election challenge pledge drives, and to compensate the city and the state of Michigan for legal fees incurred while defending against the fraud claims.

Powell appeared alongside Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani at the 19 November press conference in which attorneys discussed what they alleged was a "systemic" campaign of voter fraud in the 3 November election by Trump's adversaries, with Trump himself saying he had "hundreds and hundreds" of sworn affidavits and "thousands" of witnesses to alleged vote fraud.

The Giuliani-led team later specified that Powell was not a member of the Trump legal team and not a lawyer for the president after he suggested that Venezuela and its late president, Hugo Chavez, were involved in the fraud, and pointed to possible CIA involvement as well.

President Trump continues to reject the 3 November vote results, accusing Democrats in key swing states of conspiring to rob him of victory using alleged mass late-night vote dumps, voting machine irregularities, and other possible illegal activity. His legal team's allegations have yet to stand up in court.

Congress is expected to meet for a joint session later on Wednesday to formally certify the results of the election in Biden's favour.