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Akiva Cohen Profile picture
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4 Jan, 16 tweets, 5 min read
The judge in this case has now issued an absolutely brutal smackdown that you'll enjoy reading. It comes complete with a well-earned threat of sanctions.
Here's the decision. Some highlights follow

ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_p…
Pretty sure I said this, using slightly different words!
Hey, @questauthority, it sounds like Judge Boasberg was about as pleased about the long "none of this matters but we want to say it anyway" section as we expected him to be
You CANNOT run into court claiming there's an emergency and you need an expedited schedule so you can be heard before 1/6 and then just not bother serving anyone for 12 days
OOOOOOOOOF level: Infinity. Achievement unlocked
Seriously, a court saying "this band of merry fuckwits got this wrong for many more reasons than I can cover so I'll just pick the top FOUR" is not something that you ever want to see
Just going to pause here to remember that the Court did this without opposition briefing (since no opponent was served nobody responded) because these problems were so glaring
YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY ASKING TO BE DISENFRANCHISED
Not only are you the wrong plaintiffs, but, unfortunately, you neglected to provide the Court with the necessary time-travel machine
That first highlighting is the politest version of "what the ever-loving fuck were you guys smoking to think that this was a thing" that I can remember seeing, ever, and I love it.
"must also pause at" is entering my personal litigation toolbox, thanks
There is no rule that requires the court to quote a party's briefing in the order; those "Sic" notations are just twists of the knife.

Because the substantive argument was loony tunes
ahahahahaha
This judge gets it. As I said, this suit was a political stunt, and the Court is correct not to let itself get used for that.

Note: the grievance committee can issue discipline ranging from "take some CLEs" all the way through "you can no longer practice in DC Federal Court"
And that's it.

Seriously, this ruling was chicken soup for the ethical litigator's soul. Very much needed

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More from @AkivaMCohen

Akiva Cohen Profile picture
5 Jan
Raffensperger has filed his response to the new Trump case, on very short notice. @questauthority is livereading it here twitch.tv/questauthority

So I'll do a twitter thread
Let's start with the Table of Contents, which tells you which points they're going to hit. It's all the ones you would expect: the 5 reasons the court shouldn't bother hearing the case at all (standing, mootness, laches, sovereign immunity, abstention) plus losing anyway Image
This is a nice start to the intro. We counted this stuff over and over. We've already certified repeatedly, appointed electors, sent in the slate, they voted already.

We. Are. Done. This is in Congress's hands now. So what are they doing in your court suing us?? Image
Read 85 tweets
Akiva Cohen Profile picture
4 Jan
We now have access to the Complaint and request for TRO the President filed against Georgia on Thursday. Will do a thread but it's loooong so this'll take time, as I have work-work to do as well
I really really hope this isn't what they construct this complaint around. "some people voted illegally" is true in every election (see the multiple fraudulent votes for Trump in PA, for example), and this doesn't get you to "they admit the election was unreliable"
This particular statement referred to Sterling catching the woman he'd bought his home from 2 years ago registering to vote absentee and using it as the address. Story here cbs46.com/news/election-…
Read 55 tweets
Akiva Cohen Profile picture
1 Jan
I see @questauthority already did an excellent thread on the Gohmertian reply brief the krak(en) team filed. As it's Friday afternoon, I don't have time for my own. But let's just briefly touch on the "motion to intervene" filed by the Republican Michigan Cosplay Electors
Here's what you need to know about a "motion to intervene" - it mainly exists so that parties who will be impacted by the outcome of a lawsuit can have a chance to influence that outcome if they aren't named as parties. For example - if I'm suing Bob Co. to invalidate a contract
And some third party will get paid 100K if the contract is held valid, or $0 if I win, the third party gets to intervene.

Unless, of course, Bob Co. is already going to do a good enough job fighting for the contract's validity that there's really no need for third party to join
Read 9 tweets
Akiva Cohen Profile picture
31 Dec 20
So Pence has basically just filed an "I can't believe you assholes put me in this position" politician's response to the Gohmert suit, regretfully asking the Court to dismiss because Plaintiffs really should have sued Congress, not him, since they're asking to give him more power
My wife just took over the computer so we'll pause this thread for a bit
To give you a sense of exactly how much of a political coward Pence is, and how much internal wrangling there must have been over the proper response here, check out the opening highlight in the second image here
Read 7 tweets
Akiva Cohen Profile picture
29 Dec 20
So questions like this come up a lot and it reflects a misunderstanding of how courts work, so I figured I'd address it a bit more broadly. Every case gets "heard," if by "heard" you mean "a court looks at the arguments and considers them".
Sometimes that happens only on a motion to dismiss, when the court hears arguments that the case can't possibly win even if all the facts it claims are actually true, and then dismisses the case. Sometimes it happens on summary judgment, after discovery, when the parties argue
that the evidence conclusively proves their version of the facts, so they should win. Sometimes it's after a trial.

But our courts have NO mechanism for a judge to just randomly look at a case and say "wow, this is stupid, I dismiss it"
Read 4 tweets
Akiva Cohen Profile picture
29 Dec 20
OK, as promised, a live-read thread on Gohmert's motion in the stupid "the VP gets to pick the next President" litigation.

I'm not going to repeat stuff I addressed when I went through the complaint so if you need a refresher, start here
So first of all, let's see what they're asking for. An expedited decision on the case, and permanent injunctive relief (i.e. an order directing Pence how to act when counting electoral votes) and they want it by Thursday the 31st. The second two screenshots are the local rule
They do not, however, explain why 12/31 is the magic date (when the acts they're worrying about would be on 1/6), and there's a slight logistical problem in asking for a schedule that requires a ruling on a motion in 3 days when you HAVEN'T YET BOTHERED TO SERVE THE DEFENDANT
Read 95 tweets

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