Republican Lawyers Behaving Badly Facing Bar Discipline (Disbarment)

Yet another Republican lawyer who should be disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits:

Howard Kleinhendler was part of the “Kraken” team of lawyers that included Sidney Powell and Lin Wood (Oh look, they are representing one another against Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit, Ex-Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell Hires Lin Wood for Defamation Case) – that’s cute, they have a fool for a lawyer), and he just got his ass handed to him over another frivolous lawsuit he brought over the canceled All-Star game in Atlanta.

Reminder: The city of Detroit calls for pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood to be disbarred for spreading ‘objectively false allegations’; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer filed a bar complaint against Sidney Powell, asking that she be stripped of her law license. And Georgia state bar sends disciplinary complaint to pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood; Judge Dismisses the Lawsuit Lin Wood Filed Against the State Bar of Georgia for Investigating His Mental Health.

Law & Crime reports, ‘For God’s Sake’: Frustrated Judge Dresses Down Ex-‘Kraken’ Lawyer Suing MLB Over All-Star Game, as Case Swings and Misses in Court:

Eviscerating the legal arguments of a pro-Donald Trump lawyer deeply involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge refused to issue an injunction forcing Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game back to Atlanta, Georgia.

“You can’t possibly think that,” an audibly frustrated U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni told attorney Howard Kleinhendler, who compared the league’s advocacy against Georgia’s voting law to illegal intimidation.

“That’s just not true,” Caproni said.

In her ruling, delivered after feisty oral arguments, Caproni slammed Kleinhendler’s comparison of Atlanta’s loss of the All-Star Game to the “loss of a child’s innocence” as unhelpful hyperbole.

To call the lawsuit “weak and muddled is an understatement,” she added.

Those were just examples of the many dressing-downs that Judge Caproni delivered to the lawyer for the conservative Job Creators Network (JCN), which filed a federal lawsuit in New York seeking to reverse MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game from Atlanta, Georgia to Denver, Colorado in the wake of Georgia’s new voting law. The law’s opponents have called SB 202 a “voter suppression bill” meant to appease “conspiracy theorists” upset about the 2020 election outcome.

JCN is represented by one of the key figures behind the conspiratorial legal offensive to overturn the 2020 election results: Kleinhendler, who was part of the so-called “Kraken” legal team that unsuccessfully tried to topple elections in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Over the course of more than an hour-and-a-half-long arguments session on Thursday, Kleinhendler claimed that the league’s opposition to SB 202 damaged his client because—if the MLB succeeded in rescinding the legislation—democracy in Georgia would be harmed by the dilution of valid votes.

Judge Caproni found that argument was way out of left field.

“You have gotten so far afield of your client’s interests,” she said.

“How is that at all relevant to this case?” the judge asked, later.

Emphasizing that the merits of voting laws are not at issue, Caproni added: “This case is not about whether the Georgia law is a good law or a bad law.”

Caproni’s frustration was palpable over the course of an hour that she questioned Kleinhendler that she appeared to raise her voice frequently and at one point, interjected, “For God’s sake!”

She was no less scathing about Kleinhendler’s arguments that MLB qualified as a state actor because it accepts large amounts of taxpayer money.

Using a homespun expression, the Alabama-born Judge Caproni described that argument as one being about private businesses “sucking on the public tit,” but she said that this practice does not a public actor make.

“You seem to think everybody is a public actor,” she exclaimed.

Shredding Kleinhendler’s equal protection arguments, Caproni pressed him for any support for the proposition that the residents of Georgia were a protected class.

Kleinhendler noted that a pizza shop cannot refuse to serve Black people.

“That’s correct because you’re discriminating on the basis of race,” Caproni countered, adding that this comparison had nothing to do with the MLB’s case.

When she pressed for precedent on residents of a state, Kleinholder cited an equal protection case about political affiliations.

“That’s political affiliations,” Judge Caproni shot back.

The judge’s interrogation was so thorough that the MLB’s lawyer began his remarks by saying that Caproni had covered most of his points, including his “surprise” point about the First Amendment.

“Sorry, I took your thunder,” Caproni quipped.

Though Kleinhendler’s oral arguments lasted more than an hour, lawyers for the MLB and its union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, spoke for a few minutes apiece. The MLBPA’s lawyer joked it was one of the few times the league and the union were on the same page.

That line even appeared to make Judge Caproni chuckle.

The judge found, among other things, that the plaintiff lacked standing. The lawsuit is not at the dismissal stage, but it now hangs by a thread. Caproni said she would schedule a conference in July—”assuming” the plaintiff wishes to continue it, she added.

Speaking of Republican lawyers who need to be disbarred for frivolous lawsuits, the most corrupt state attorney general in the United States, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, may finally be heading for disbarment.

Paxton was indicted a few years ago on felony securities fraud charges. A few months ago, his troubles got worse when members of Paxton’s own AG team made multiple criminal allegations against him. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that the FBI is investigating allegations that Paxton “broke the law in using his office to benefit a wealthy donor.”

The Washington Post reports, Texas bar association probing attorney general’s effort to overturn 2020 election:

The Texas bar association is investigating state Attorney General Ken Paxton to determine whether he committed professional misconduct in his failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The State Bar of Texas will reconsider whether Paxton made false or misleading statements to a court or filed a frivolous lawsuit when he contested the election results of four other states, claiming that President Donald Trump lost because of fraud, according to documents provided to The Washington Post. The regulatory agency initially dismissed the grievance but was ordered by an appeals board last month to look into the accusations, records show. Paxton could be cleared or face penalties, including suspension or disbarment.

The state bar’s investigation was first reported by the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Paxton, already troubled by securities fraud charges and accusations by several former employees of abusing his office to aid a political donor, has less than 30 days to respond to the grievance. Then, an investigation is conducted by the state bar to determine whether to proceed with litigation, a months-long process that includes discovery, pretrial motions and a trial.

Claire Reynolds, an attorney and representative for the bar, said the agency is required to keep disciplinary matters confidential unless they result in public sanctions or a court action.

Paxton suggested the complaint filed by Kevin Moran, president of the Galveston Island Democrats and a retired Houston Chronicle reporter, was a maneuver to help Moran’s friend, former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski, a Democrat running for attorney general.

Moran denied the grievance filed in December had anything to do with Jaworski, saying he was motivated to reach out to the bar after reading news of Paxton’s long-shot bid to overturn the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states won by President Biden.

Moran, who provided the complaint and letters from the bar and Board of Disciplinary Appeals to The Post, argues Paxton’s legal fight for Trump’s win was a waste of taxpayer’s money.

“Ken Paxton did not file this lawsuit in good faith by any stretch of the imagination,” he said in an interview. “He couldn’t have possibly believed what he was saying was true.”

Moran points to the majority opinion of legal experts who derided the bid by Paxton to subvert Biden’s win as audacious and implausible.

Democratic officials quoted in Moran’s complaint said at the time that the lawsuit was meritless. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) called the case an “embarrassment.”

“The Supreme Court will quickly reject this,” Kaul told WTMJ-AM in December, days before the high court thwarted Paxton’s case.

[B]ar associations, which typically investigate lawyers’ misconduct that harms clients, rather than political agendas, were also asked to strip Trump’s lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell of their legal licenses in Michigan and New York following post-election lawsuits rejected by judges across the political spectrum. Paxton is the most powerful attorney who lobbied for Trump to possibly face professional repercussions.

Ken Paxton is a clear example of a bad actor who should be disbarred, but what about the other 17 Republican state attorneys general who signed on to his frivolous lawsuit? Shouldn’t their state bar associations be investigating them as well? National Lawyers’ Group: Punish Texas AG Paxton and 17 Other AGs (excerpt):

Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) is calling for disciplinary action against Texas Attorney General Paxton and the lawyers who supported his frivolous Supreme Court petition seeking to overturn the election.

AG Paxton and 17 other state AGs submitted an amicus brief calling for the Court to negate millions of votes, along with 126 House Members who likewise endorsed AG Paxton’s position. The US Supreme Court refused to hear the lawsuit on Dec. 12.

“We condemn the action taken by 18 state Attorneys General, and joined by 126 Republican members of Congress, asking the Supreme Court to overturn election results,” LDAD said in a statement. “The historically unprecedented attack on our democracy needs to be met by historically unprecedented state bar investigations.”

“We call on state licensing authorities to promptly investigate the breach of ethical rules by these public officials and all lawyers participating in the filing of this Supreme Court petition. They must not shrink from applying established ethical rules to discipline those officials.”

[T]he state Attorneys General who joined Paxton’s abusive lawsuit, and the lawyer members of Congress who endorsed it, are guilty of serious ethical misconduct. ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.1, adopted in one form or another by states throughout the country, provides: “A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous . . . .”

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich was not among those who signed on to this frivolous lawsuit, but he has frequently followed the lead of the corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the “Texas pipeline” of GQP politically motivated cases through the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. This includes the widely criticized legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on in the coming weeks.