Thursday, June 03, 2021

Right Outta The Box (Late Night Reading)

 The Hauge Convention v. the Hague Concention.  Seriously.  P. 8.  In concurrent paragraphs.

And then there's the "cause of action":

Lindell will prove that the Dominion Defendants, acting in concert and as part of an unlawful enterprise alongside the Smartmatic Defendants, have weaponized the court system and the litigation process in an attempt to silence Lindell’s and others’ political speech about election fraud and the role of electronic voting machines in it. In the specific context of political speech about something as vital to a republican form of government as election integrity, no litigant should be permitted to use the courts and the litigation process as a bludgeon to suppress and stifle dissent. But that is what the Dominion Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants have done. Many of their victims lack the resources to fight back and expose the defendants’ scheme for what it is—an authoritarian abuse of state power fueled by the virtually unlimited resources from their ideological comrades. But Mike Lindell has the resources and the will to fight back, albeit at great personal and financial cost; Mike Lindell believes the future of the American republic depends on fighting back against censorship of information concerning the fundamental aspect of our republic—fair and secure elections. So Mike Lindell brings this suit to bring a stop to the defendants’ abuses of the legal system and protect Americans’ right to speak freely on matters of the utmost public concern.

I will defer to greater expertise than mine:

It's signed by actual lawyers (two of them from Houston), but it reads like pro se pleadings where the plaintiff copied some of the language from the petition already served on him by Dominion. Money talks, I guess. Not an excuse, and I'm in agreement: I can't imagine any lawyer except the most unknown-and-desperate-for-cash, signing off on this bilge.  Until I got to the signature blocks, I wasn't sure it wasn't drafted by Lindell instead of any attorney with any experience in litigation.  I'm still not sure it isn't.  But let's wander through it with the help of Mike Dunford: Lindell seems to think the Dominion suit is a SLAPP suit. Nice work if you can get it. Dunford says, in another tweet, that Lindell is "continuing his assault on our republic through the use of performative frivolous litigation." Eh; I've seen worse. And I think the Republic will survive. In fact, this is more akin to Molly Ivins' riposte to a critic: the experience, she said, was like being gummed by a newt. It did no harm, but left your ankle all slimy. I post that so you can see the pictures that illustrate the complaint. Why the VPOTUS needs to be seen in a photograph in a federal legal pleading is beyond me. And presenting an assertion as a "fact" (there are lots of things labeled "fact" in this document) is a nice rhetorical dodge, but it doesn't really get you to the Supreme Court by August. Nor does this one: You get the idea. The complaint goes on to restate (and so affirm Lindell said so) many statements by Lindell which are the factual basis for Dominion's lawsuit against him. Again, I question whether the signatory lawyers read this thing, or whether they were stupid enough to just sign it. I'm serious; I can't tell which condition is true. Apparently the lawfirm at the Minnesota end of this crap is a large and so respectable one (you don't get big by being clowns). Don't know about the Houston end, but my guess is they are carrying the water here, using the Minnesota firm to get into the U.S. court in Minnesota (that's a lawyer thing; it's done all the time). It's stuff like this that makes me wonder: I knew that and I haven't practiced law in almost 30 years. My guess is they got tired of quoting Orwell. My other guess is they found all these quotes via Google, because they're all so badly taken out of context that's the only explanation for how they're being used here.

Why they are being used here, is a separate question.  But it is not normal practice to include pictures of well-known people you are referring to, as if your audience might not know who you meant or might need a picture to relieve the text blocks; and it's absolutely unheard of to toss in random quotes that sound ominous and/or "serious."  There are 3 quotes from Orwell in the complaint, and one each from E.M. Forster, Ray Bradbury, and William Shakespeare.  No, I don't know why at all.
This is a fundamental problem.  The Complaint rambles on for over 65 pages before it gets down to causes of action (those things courts can actually consider providing relief on).  I don't disagree the facts don't establish any causes of action, but the causes of action themselves don't do that.

Count 1 alleges "abuse of process" under Minnesota law.  Part of this is that paragraph 120 quoted in the tweet above.  Basically, abuse of process doesn't meant what this Complaint thinks it means.  And I'm not even a Minnesota lawyer.

Count II is defamation.  That's the one Popehat (also above) referred to.  Lindell literally says he was defamed when Dominion called him a liar.  Yeah, as Popehat said:  good luck with that.

Count III alleges violation of RICO because defendants "having the common purpose of suppressing dissent to the use of electronic voting machines and suppressing demands for investigations into the possible use of electronic voting machines to artificially manipulate voting, vote tabulations, and election results reporting in the 2020 Presidential Election."  I'll leave the legal analysis of that to Popehat; but just on its face, that's utter nonsense.  From reading through the complaint, this cause of action is based on no stronger evidence than was tossed out of 60 courts in the waning months of 2020.

Count IV says the defendants violated Lindell's civil rights by calling him a liar, and suing him for defamation.  Sure, that'll work. (Problem no. 1:  Dominion filed suit long after the election was over.  The statue cited applies to conduct occuring before the election and meant to effect the vote or support of an individual in said election.)

Count V alleges violations of 5th and 14th Amendments, which allow Lindell to recover damages because defendants were "state actors" by....selling voting machines to some of the several states.

I can't even....

This won't get Lindell in front of the Supreme Court this summer.  He'll be lucky if this case is still in the District Court at the end of the summer.
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