"There is no doubt that each side believes firmly in its position with great conviction,” Thompson wrote. “The fact that plaintiff [Lake] failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence … does not equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”
Julian wrote that there was no evidence that Finchem or his lawyer made any efforts to examine if their claims actually formed a valid basis for challenging the election, and that they continued to assert their false claims despite evidence to the contrary.
In other words, in Lake’s case they thought that she really believed what she was saying. In Finchem’s case, it seemed clear that he knew he lost and was just trying to use the court as a weapon.
I can’t say if that was fair, and maybe they are both guilty of weaponizing the court, but the judges certainly felt differently.
IANAL, but I believe this is correct. From the judge’s ruling:
The evidence appended to Finchem’s own amended statement demonstrates that he
pursued this contest in bad faith. Attached to Finchem’s Amended Statement was his own expert’s
analysis of the alleged failure to count so-called “black box votes.” Finchem’s expert report
identified 80,000 potentially “missing votes.” Yet, Finchem lost the election he challenged by
120,208 votes. That margin was so significant that even if it were assumed that 80,000 votes were
missing and that those votes would all have been cast in his favor, the result of the election would
not have changed.
It’s court, so I’m sure the details make all of the difference. Even if they are effectively pulling the same stunt.
ETA: It’s also not like the judge in Lake’s case thought that she didn’t do anything wrong. It isn’t the standard to make the loser of a case pay other’s legal fees. (Because if that was the standard, it would dissuade people from bringing a lawsuit in the first place, but tort reform is a huge can of worms probably discussed elsewhere.) Anyway, making her do that was clearly a punitive action. The judge didn’t just say, “No, I don’t think so, case dismissed.” It was egregious enough that she had a financial punishment. It just didn’t rise to the level of actual sanctions.
If you follow some of the more crazy court cases out there, like Sovereign Citizen stuff, it’s pretty clear that most judges err on the side of the crazies, in giving them the benefit of the doubt as to the level of sincerity of their court claims. For a judge to get to the point of sanctions, the crazies have to have really screwed up.
We could wish some judges were quicker to pull the trigger in some cases, but this doesn’t seem out of line with the usual precedents.
Sure, Trump knows what’s in the documents. Just like Trump knows he’s a crook and a lying orange sleazebag. But it takes time to invent all the lies and excuses necessary to try to pretend the evidence is no good when there’s so damn much of it. Usually a lot of time, and a lot of lawyers (many of whom frequently end up needing their own lawyers after disgracing themselves on Trump’s behalf).
The Fox host said of the Trump presidency, “That’s the last four years. We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
I could understand hating Trump as a person, and yet still supporting him as a candidate/president, if you thought he was at least producing for you. But they know he wasn’t even doing that!
We told them when Trump first started to run as a candidate that he would be a disaster. We told them when he was in the general election that he would be a disaster. We kept pointing out his screw-ups his whole term in office, and then even after he lost the election and spent months flailing about trying to not lose.
And it turns out, Fucker Carlson was agreeing with us the whole time. He’s just too fucking evil to admit that.
Also, they have a mental condition where they cannot admit they were wrong, about anything, ever. That’s why they would have been happy if Trump had rolled over and then disappeared from public life, not because it would have been good for the country or for their cause, but because all their mistakes would have slid quietly into history and they wouldn’t have to talk about them any more