AUSTIN, Texas — The State Bar of Texas is seeking sanctions against Dallas lawyer Sidney Powell over her failed efforts to contest the 2020 election results on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign.
A petition filed March 1 accuses Powell of professional misconduct by filing “frivolous” voter fraud lawsuits in four states, making false statements to a court and offering evidence she knew to be false.
Powell “had no reasonable basis to believe the lawsuits she filed were not frivolous,” according to a petition filed in Dallas County district court by the bar’s commission for lawyer discipline.
The petition asks the court to determine an appropriate sanction, which could range from reprimand to disbarment. Powell has been licensed to practice law in Texas since 1978.
The conservative lawyer rose to national prominence after the 2020 presidential election by filing baseless lawsuits challenging the results and alleging unfounded conspiracy theories that prompted even the Trump campaign to disavow her. Powell is already facing sanctions in Michigan and a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems Corp.
Powell told Reuters she looks forward to presenting evidence to clear her name.
“The Texas bar decision was totally expected, but it is an unfortunate and poor decision by the bar,” Powell told the wire service. “No lawyer could practice law under the rule they would set for me.”
She did not respond to a request for comment from The Dallas Morning News.
A complaint against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also moving forward, the Houston Chronicle first reported Monday. A national group of lawyers and 16 others from Texas have accused him of professional misconduct for filing a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court that sought to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s election win. The high court rejected the case.
James Harrington, one of the Texas attorneys who filed the complaint, said Paxton has 20 days to choose whether the matter is heard in district court, or before an administrative panel, according to the state bar’s rules. Court proceedings are public; the administrative panel meets behind closed doors.
“Our hope is of course he pays the price for making a mockery of our system,” said Harrington, the retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project
In a combative response Monday, Paxton called the bar’s action a “partisan attack” meant to influence his May 24 runoff election against GOP challenger George P. Bush.
“Bottom line: This is just a bid to manipulate elections,” Paxton, a second-term Republican, said in a statement. “But I’m not worried. I take their partisan attacks as a mark that I’m doing the right thing.”
The bar launched the disciplinary case against Powell after receiving complaints from 10 people, including Gretchen Whitmer, Dana Nessel and Jocelyn Benson.
The complaint doesn’t specifically state that Whitmer, Nessel and Benson are the governor, attorney general and secretary of state of Michigan, respectively. But all three state officials have previously called for Powell to be disbarred after she filed a lawsuit there “based on falsehoods” that sought to overturn Biden’s win in Michigan. Their spokespeople did not immediately return a request for comment.
Powell is fighting sanctions imposed last year by a federal judge in Michigan, who tossed the lawsuit and called it “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”
The disciplinary proceedings against Powell will be held in open court. A hearing date has yet to be set and Powell has not yet filed a response.
Decades earlier, Powell was a federal prosecutor in the Western and Northern districts of Texas. She prosecuted American drug trafficker Jimmy Chagra, who was implicated in the 1979 assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio.
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