Sidney Powell's next "Kraken" lawsuit has been filed with the Supreme Court, "King vs Whitmer". I'm writing this evaluation at the behest of a friend, but just in case you don't have the time or interest to read this kind of thing, here's the summary:
TL;DR - The suit is absolutely batshit crazy, and not only will it be dismissed immediately if heard by the Supreme Court, there is very little chance it will even be granted certiorari.
So, in the case of King vs. Whitmer, filed with the Supreme Court on December 15th:
First things first - She is suing a state official in federal court, an action specifically forbidden by the 11th Amendment. There are a few (three) exceptions to the 11th Amendment, but none of them apply here. Of all the myriad of reasons this suit will be tossed, the fact that it is barred by the 11th Amendment should have stopped it from even being filed. This is further evidence that these suits are not intended to be winning cases, but are instead intended as fund-raisers for Trump and his allies.
The suit in the Supreme Court is essentially a request to force a rehearing of the recently denies suit in the 11th Circuit. That suit is a hodgepodge of claims, in the inimitable Powell style of "throw absolutely everything at the wall you can think of and see if anything sticks".
Nothing sticks.
If I may borrow from Dorothy Parker: "This suit is not something to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force".
Among the relief that Powell seeks are the following injunctions:
- Order the state of Michigan to decertify the results of the election.
[It's not clear to me there is even a legal process for doing this] - Enjoin the Secretary of State of MI from transmitting the certified election results to the Electoral College.
[This is obviously moot] - Order the state of MI to transmit certified election results to the Elector College that states that Donald Trump is the winner of the election(!!).
[There is no conceivable legal basis for this, and the lawsuit doesn't even attempt to state one] - Impound all voting machines and software in Michigan for expert inspection.
[On it's own, this is at least legally feasible... but again, the suit will either not be granted cert, or will be dismissed quickly because it violates the 11th Amendment] - Enter a declaratory judgment that mail-in and absentee ballot fraud must be remedied with a manual recount or statistically valid sampling.
[Obviously moot, as the results have already been certified]
Also standing in the way of this suit is the federal "Safe Harbor" provision.
The United States Code (3 U.S.C. § 5) provides that if election results are contested in any state, and if the state, prior to election day, has enacted procedures to settle controversies or contests over electors and electoral votes, and if these procedures have been applied, and the results have been determined six days before the electors’ meetings, then these results are considered to be conclusive and will apply in the counting of the electoral votes.
This date (the “Safe Harbor” deadline) fell on December 8, 2020, a week prior to the suit being filed with Supreme Court.
I want to emphasize that I have on the things wrong with this suit. Much of what it seeks is either unconstitutional, unlawful, or physically impossible, and it has chance of impacting the election. It will almost certainly be denied certiorari, and its only reason for existing is as a fundraising tool.
Here is the decision in original case in District Court : https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.350905/gov.uscourts.mied.350905.6.0.pdf
Petition for certiorari : https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-815/163621/20201211163936285_Petition%20Michigan%20.pdf