Boasberg said Kaardal’s explanations for his actions were inadequate, so a referral to a panel of conduct for prosecutors at the court was necessary.
“Since he has not sufficiently allayed the Court’s concerns about possible bad faith, he will refer the matter to the Committee by means of a separate letter so that he can determine whether the discipline is appropriate,” said the judge.
The suit, Wisconsin Voters Alliance v. Pence, it claimed that election procedures in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were unconstitutional because legislatures did not have the final say in certifying the winner in those states and in nominating presidential voters.
Boasberg said the case suffered from “numerous shortcomings”, including a prolonged recitation of allegations of fraud, while denying any intention to challenge the same fraud.
“The plaintiffs spend dozens of pages cataloging all the discrepancies or irregularities conceivable in the 2020 vote in the five relevant states, already unmasked or not, most of which they describe as a kind of fraud,” wrote the judge. “The only reason the Court can see why the Complaint spends more than 70 pages on irrelevant allegations of fraud, no instance that has persuaded any court in any state to question the outcome of the election, is political arrogance.”
Boasberg also said that the timing of the lawsuit, which opened on December 22, was deeply suspect.
“This claim … could have been filed at any time in recent years (or, in some cases, decades). It is fanciful that the council needed to be concerned whether states would in fact take the supposedly illegal action of certifying their electoral results without the involvement of the state legislature, since state statutes required them to do just that, ”added the judge. “Waiting until the council arrives again sounds like a political game.”
Kaardal, a former Minnesota Republican Party secretary / treasurer, is a lawyer with Minneapolis Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson. When he filed the lawsuit last December, he said he was serving as a special lawyer for Project Amistad of the Thomas More Society, a socially conservative legal organization based in Chicago.
Kaardal and Justin Flint, a Washington lawyer who represents Kaardal in the disciplinary struggle, did not immediately respond to messages asking for comment on Boasberg’s decision.
Other efforts are underway to discipline or punish lawyers who have entered into litigation related to elections that critics considered unfounded.
Earlier this month, the Georgia State Bar Association issued a 1,677 page complaint against a renowned state attorney, Lin Wood. The complaint cited as “frivolous” a series of lawsuits that Wood opened contesting the results of the 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere. The request came after the bar asked Wood to seek mental health treatment.
Wood insists that the bizarre prosecutions and allegations he made publicly to the president of the court of law John Roberts were justified. Wood said he plans to fight the effort to discipline him.
A Detroit judge is also considering a motion to impose sanctions on Wood and other local lawyers who filed a lawsuit questioning Biden’s victory in that state. The city of Detroit urged the judge to compel the lawyers who opened the case to pay the opposing parties’ attorney fees and refer them for possible exclusion.