Thread by @alanfeuer

Good morning.
At 11:15 am EST there will be a hearing in federal court in Phoenix on a motion to dismiss Sidney Powell's 3rd "kraken" conspiracy lawsuit. Yesterday a judge denied her TRO in Michigan & another judge killed her suit in Atlanta.
Here's a kraken update...

Today's hearing will cover threshold legal issues to see if the Arizona kraken can survive dismissal.
Do the plaintiffs, GOP elector candidates, have standing?
Is the suit timely?
Is it moot since AZ has certified its vote?
Can state officials be sued for official acts?

Those questions have already gone against Powell in MI and GA. She'll try again in AZ though and then at some point in Wisconsin too.

Powell had initially wanted to call witnesses for testimony on her conspiratorial claims that foreign powers hacked into the state's voting machines and flipped votes.
But Judge Diane Humetewa is allowing testimony *only* if the case survives dismissal today.

The state defendants in WI are claiming that Powell's requests for evidentiary hearings are merely attempts to use the courts for the same kind of "circus" hearings that Rudy Giuliani and crew held w/lawmakers in states like MI and GA.
They want the WI case decided on briefs.

I'll be posting periodic update here once the hearing starts.
Stay tuned.

Judge Humetewa is on the bench. She has set a fairly tight schedule for today's arguments.
She begins by asking what relevance today's safe harbor deadline has on the suit.

Julia Haller, speaking today for Powell, answers that the safe harbor deadline is generally accepted as the date after which *state* litigation is supposed to be concluded. This case is a federal case.

Judge Humetewa is asking if this case is too similar to a recently dismissed state case. Haller says no. These plaintiffs are different, she says, as are the defendants: Gov Ducey and the AZ secretary of state.

Judge Humetewa says she's concerned that the state judge already threw out some of the kraken's complaints.
"How can it be any different?" she asks.

Judge gives a little guidance to Haller after Haller rambles about the Dominion system algorithm. "Seems to me you're trying to get into the merits of the complaint," judge says, when in fact she's asking why the complaint should survive dismissal in the first place.
(Not good)

Haller is trying to argue that presidential electors--her plaintiffs--have standing. That was twice a losing argument: in Michigan and Georgia.

Now Haller is trying to say the suit isn't untimely because the fraud she's alleging was only apparent on and/or after Election Day. Defendants have argued that if she had problems w/AZ's voting machines, she should have sued months ago.

"This claim is very much alive, your honor," Haller says.
Judge interrupts: What about the other courts (in MI and GA) who have said the election results in question are already certified so what's the available relief here?
"What make this different?" judge asks.

Haller tries arguing that the evidence here shows presumption of harm--which is not a threshold legal motion to dismiss question. She's trying to sneak arguments for injunctive relief into this hearing where it doesn't belong.
(Powell tried the same thing yesterday.)

Judge interrupts to tell Haller his time's almost up.

(Her time)

Haller is still going back to evidence, claiming that more than 5000 votes from people outside of jurisdiction.
We do have ability to show there's substantial likelihood we'll be successful on merits."

Justin Nelson now speaks for AZ secretary of state Katie Hobbs and Gov Ducey.

Nelson says this suit is an assault on democracy to get "breathtaking startling relief" to "overturn the will of the people."

Nelson is quoting Judge Batten from Atlanta who said yesterday that there is no such legal mechanism as a federal judge summarily deep-sixing an election and naming a victor on his or her own.
"They are seeking to overturn an election," Nelson says.

Nelson is begging Judge Humetewa not to entertain this suit at all.
Complaint is about state law, he says.
Complaint repeats claims already dismissed by a state judge, he adds.

"Plaintiffs are trying to use this court as an end run around the system," he says.
If it's allowed to move forward, Nelson says, NO election would ever be considered valid in the future.

Now Nelson is making the 11th amendment argument that state officials have immunity for official acts and shouldn't have been sued in the first place.
And of course the standing argument.

We're on to mootness.
"The court cannot simply turn the clock back and create a world where the 2020 election didn't happen," he said.
And...untimeliness.
"The plaintiffs waited too long to knock on the court's door," Nelson says quoting Judge Parker in Michigan.

Finally, the complaint alleges "utterly implausible fraud."
"The claims are simply not plausible," he says.
A web of confidential witnesses tracing interference from Venezuela, Iran...ok, Nelson says. Even if that's true, What does it have to do with Arizona?

Their experts have no expertise, there is no firsthand information in their filings, their reports are nuts, Nelson says (a paraphrase on that last one.)
"This case is an attempt to undermine our confidence in the system with no basis in law or fact," Nelson says.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Julia Haller is getting her rebuttal moment.

Haller is now trying to say that she can prove fraud not just here in AZ but in MI and GA--where her cases have already LOST.
Why do these lawyers just ignore judicial findings?

She simultaneously arguing that there's a pattern of fraud across the country but that the suits are separate and a loss in one district should have no effect on another district.

Judge Humetewa says she's going to issue an order shortly.

Adding her order will come no later than tomorrow afternoon.

Hearing adjourned. Out.