Sidney Powell’s Wisconsin ‘Kraken’ Election Suit Dismissed

(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge in Wisconsin became the latest to dismiss a lawsuit brought by ex-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell on behalf of disgruntled Republican voters alleging a vast and implausible election-fraud conspiracy.

U.S. District Judge Judge Pamela Pepper in Milwaukee on Wednesday night granted a dismissal request by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who argued the complaint was “rampant with wild speculation and conspiratorial conclusions, and simply without any basis in law or fact.”

The case is one of four Powell brought seeking to overturn election results in battleground states won by President-elect Joe Biden, alleging hundreds of Democratic election workers conspired to flip votes with help from corrupt voting machines allegedly infiltrated by foreign agents. When she announced the suits last month, Powell said she was “releasing the Kraken,” a reference to a mythical sea monster depicted in the 1981 fantasy film “Clash of the Titans.”

Pepper said ruling for Powell would take the court “outside the limits” of both the Constitution and its oath to uphold the law.

“Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country,” the judge wrote. “One wonders why the plaintiffs came to federal court and asked a federal judge to do so. After a week of sometimes odd and often harried litigation, the court is no closer to answering the ‘why.’ But this federal court has no authority or jurisdiction to grant the relief the remaining plaintiff seeks.”

Pepper joins federal judges in Georgia and Arizona who have also dismissed Powell’s suits. A federal judge in Michigan denied her motion for an injunction against state officials, calling her case “conjecture and speculation.”

Powell filed a notice of appeal in the Wisconsin case on Thursday. She has vowed to take her lawsuits filed on behalf of Republican voters to the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump’s campaign has a separate suit in Wisconsin federal court challenging mail-in voting in the state, which Biden won by around 20,000 votes.

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