Democratic lawyer and discredited dossier funder Marc Elias is trying to escape sanctions imposed by federal appeals judges last year for misleading the court.
The former lawyer for Perkins Coie, best known for funding British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier while he worked as Hillary Clinton’s top campaign lawyer in 2016, was punished by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in March last year for his behavior in a battle against a Texas law banning straight-ticket voting.
Elias has attempted to fashion himself as a guardian of democracy despite his lead role in undermining the 2016 presidential election using the baseless Trump-Russia narrative. But the 5th Circuit’s sanctions pose a serious blemish for him as he fights to get Democrats elected in 2022.
Paul Clement, the lawyer representing Elias, filed a late December request asking the full appeals court to take up the matter and to reverse the sanctions against the Democratic lawyer. Clement argued that appeals courts “generally reserve sanctions for egregious misconduct” and said Elias had committed only “good-faith mistakes.”
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The 5th Circuit judges found Elias and others on his team filed a motion that was denied, then refiled a nearly identical motion without notifying the court the first effort had been denied. Judge Edith Clement, nominated by former President George W. Bush in 2001, and Judge Jennifer Elrod, nominated by Bush in 2007, both ordered Elias and his associates to be sanctioned last year, while Judge Catharina Haynes, another 2007 Bush nominee, did not.
“This inexplicable failure to disclose the earlier denial of their motion violated their duty of candor to the court,” the judges ruled last year, adding that the redundant motion “multiplied the proceedings unreasonably and vexatiously.”
The Democratic lawyers, including Elias, were ordered to pay attorneys’ fees and double costs, and the judges recommended Elias and his colleagues review the section of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct on “Candor Toward the Tribunal” and encouraged them to “complete one hour of Continuing Legal Education in the area of Ethics and Professionalism, specifically candor with the court.”
The appeals judges upheld their decision in June, ruling that the sanctions were “justified” and “appropriate” because Elias “violated local rules.” The judges also said that Elias and the other lawyers “recklessly disregarded their duty to the court by failing to demonstrate candor to the court.” The court ordered Elias and the others to pay up $8,700 in opposing attorneys’ fees in December.
The underlying case involved a 2017 Texas law that ended straight-party ticket voting effective Sept. 1, 2020, two months before the November 2020 election. A federal judge cited the pandemic to put the practice back in place in September 2020, but the appeals court overruled that and upheld the law that month. Texas Democrats have long claimed the law hurts black and Hispanic voters.
Elias, the former head of the Perkins Coie political law group who launched his own Elias Law Group last year, hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Steele in 2016. Elias testified that he was aware of Fusion’s plans to have Steele brief reporters about his anti-Trump research during the 2016 contest, met with Steele during the 2016 contest, and periodically briefed the campaign about the findings from Fusion and Steele.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December 2019 report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s dossier.
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Elias, who was also the general counsel for now-Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2020 bid, gained popularity during 2020’s election court battles. Michael Sussmann, another now-former Perkins Coie lawyer with whom Elias coordinated closely with on anti-Trump research in 2016, was indicted in special counsel John Durham’s criminal investigation.
